


(i don't care if heaven won't take me back)

by Princessponies



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Everyone Is Alive (For Now), Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Luke Castellan Redemption, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Complaint - The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson), Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2020-05-18 16:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19338190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princessponies/pseuds/Princessponies
Summary: "They say before you start a war / you better know what you're fighting for / Well baby, you are all that I adore [...] I don't care if heaven won't take me back / I'll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe / Don't you know you're everything I have?"(Divergence: Post-The Titan's Curse, approximately around the time of Battle Of The Labyrinth)The angel has fallen early, and after being weakened by Tartarus is captured by the Titan Army. Luke finds himself exiled. Ethan follows his heart. A trio learns what it's like to have a family again.





	1. Luke discovers how gym socks feel

The worst stretch of Luke’s life started with his nose itching.

In the case of just about anyone else in the Titan Army camp, this would be a non-issue. Unfortunately for Luke, he was busy being possessed. At the moment, as per usual, his hands were not his own. 

For a bit over the past year or so, Luke had offered to serve as the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, feet, and everything of the titan king Kronos. After a little dip in the River Styx to give himself the curse of Achilles so he wouldn’t be obliterated immediately upon possession, Luke had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of painfully having his body hijacked by an immortal being. Consensually. Consent is important. To him, anyways. Maybe not so much to Kronos. 

Kronos also didn’t care much for the whole bodily sensations thing. Like pain. And itches. So as Luke’s consciousness was pushed to the back of his own mind, he got to experience all the wonderful sensations of toe-stubbings and nose itches while Kronos could completely ignore it and go on with his day of important business, like plotting to destroy Olympus.

Luke couldn’t complain, of course. Kronos could hear his thoughts. And negative thoughts about his brain roommate (no, not roommate- landlord? He couldn’t call them equal in the slightest) would mean Kronos’ harsh reprimands flooding the small sector of his brain that was still his own. So he sat in pained silence in his own head as his/Kronos’ nose itched. To make matters worse, the armor Kronos had donned pinched as they sat on the make-shift throne that had been set up in the army’s camp, just outside an enterance to the labyrinth. Luke squirmed uncomfortably in his head, trying to resist the urge to request that they just  _ please shift a little to the left, scoot my knee out a little so the armor doesn’t pinch, let me scratch my nose- _

_     I CAN HEAR YOU. _

    Oh.

_     My sincerest apologies, my Lord- I didn’t mean to sound as though I’m complaining- _

_     WHO SAID YOU COULD STILL CLAIM THIS BODY AS YOUR OWN? _

_     ...It won’t happen again, my Lord. _

    Luke awkwardly tried to shove down his own thoughts, and instead focused detachedly on the outside world. The sound of footsteps was slowly approaching the “throne room.”

 

    After an eternity, two Laestrygonians burst through the doors, gleefully swinging what looked to be a giant celestial bronze cookie jar between them.

_     Canadians, _ Kronos hummed disdainfully in Luke’s head. A personal aside, seeing as Luke was the only audience member in the room. Kronos liked to have an audience.

    “Daniel, Leon.” A deep, chilling voice that was both Luke’s yet not his own hissed from Luke-But-Not-Luke’s thoat. “It took you both long enough to reform. Where have you been?”

    “Sorry, my lord,” The Laestrygonian on the right- Daniel- smiled apologetically. “We had caught word last week that a  _ demigod  _ was wandering Tartarus. A  _ live  _ one! So we thought we’d try and catch them. And we did!” He hefted the jar to show it off, as though he wasn’t sure if they had noticed it already. 

    “Took us a bit to chase the little bugger down.” The second one- Leon- added. “He’s a strong one! Very powerful too. He was in pretty bad shape when we managed to nab him, but he should recover. Dunno who his godly parent is, though.”

    Kronos eyed the jar over, gaze coming to rest on the tightly sealed lid.

    “This…  _ container _ , you’ve trapped the demigod in… It wouldn’t happen to be air-tight, would it?”

    “Oh, yes it is, my lord!” Daniel banged proudly on the jar, producing an echo like a drum. “He was a real slippery half-blood, so we wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be able to get out! Made sure not to open it at all, too!”

    Kronos pinched the bridge of his-slash-not-Luke’s nose, furrowing his-not-their brow deeply. 

    “...You do realize,” He hissed. “That demigods need to  _ breathe _ . To  _ survive _ . How long has he been in there?”

    The Laestrygonians looked at each other sheepishly.

    "Oh. Right.” Leon rubbed uncomfortably at the back of his neck. “He’s only been in there a week- took us a bit to get here from Tartarus.”

    “A  _ week _ ?” Kronos groaned. “Humans can hardly survive more than an  _ hour  _ without air, you imbeciles. Let alone more than a few days without water.”

    Nervously, the two Laestrygonians hefted the lid off of the jar with a  _ pop _ , pouring the contents of the jar out onto the floor. A single, meek, skeletal demigod rolled ungracefully out.

    He was alive, surprisingly. Unconscious, barely moving, but alive. He gasped as he hit the floor, taking deep lungfuls of air. His clothes were tattered and burned, his hair was matted and greasy. He was sickly pale and covered in grime. A jacket maybe three sizes too large for him curled around him like a child’s blanket. In fact, this  _ was  _ a child. Probably no more than twelve. Despite his near corpse-like state, he radiated power.

    Kronos leaned forward with curiosity. Luke mentally reared back in horror.

    “Well, he’s quite useless right now- He’d probably die if I even  _ poked  _ him.” Kronos hummed. “... _ But _ ...after a few day’s rest, perhaps, he would make quite a good host. Powerful indeed, and he’s proven himself resilient. Already weakened, he wouldn’t be able to resist if I were to make him into my host.”

    Luke couldn’t help his latent camp counselor instincts kicking in. Memories of journeying with a young, ratty, fearful Annabeth.

_     He’s just a kid. _ He thought, echoes of the pain of Kronos taking over his body rippling across his skin. In the recesses of his mind, a second thought bubbled fearfully.  _ If you take over him, then what will happen to me? _

_     A CHILD IS EASIER TO INFLUENCE,  _ Kronos murmured in his-not-their head. _ I CAN BRING HIM TO BELIEVE IN OUR CAUSE, AND MAKE HIM INTO A WILLING HOST. _

    If he were in control of his own body, Luke figured he would be shaking. Not a twelve year old. Why a twelve year old? He wouldn’t even be in high school yet.  _ Why a twelve year old? _

    Kronos stood, circling the child on the floor with interest.

    “Yes. He will work well.” 

_     Please, no, not a kid- _

    “Bring him to a private cot and give him water and food. Lock him there.” Luke wished the words weren’t coming from his-but-not-his lips.

    “I will return to my sarcophagus. In three days time, if he has recovered well, bring him to me and I will rise with a new host. I will be more powerful than ever imaginable.” Kronos grinned, and the Laestrygonians hefted the child like a sack of potatoes (Luke could hear the kid groan painfully, and his heart sank in sympathy) and carried him off. Following them a bit down the “halls” of their camp, Kronos turned sharply into the make-shift room where his golden sarcophagus laid. With a sick twist in his gut, Luke realized what was about to happen.

    He wasn’t able to prepare for the pain.

    Kronos ungracefully ripped away from Luke’s body, scalding with immortal fire, leaving Luke’s entire being feeling shredded and torched. He was meekly aware of collapsing to the floor as his consciousness flooded back into his limbs. Cuts and lacerations as though he had momentarily been splitting from the inside out scattered across his body, and fresh burns were eager to make themselves known as they were pressed against the cold stone floor. Luke felt discarded, like an old dirty gym sock that had gotten a hole in it and thusly outlived its use. In his hazy vision, gold smoke curled through the air and was sucked towards the coffin, until all was dark. A deep, booming voice echoed from within it.

    “ _ Be a good little son of the messenger god, Castellan. _ ” Kronos hissed mockingly with all the coldness of a son who had hacked off his father’s _ family jewels _ with a scythe. “ _ Let the news be known: in three days time, I will have a new host, and you will no longer be needed here. _ ”

    Luke writhed on the ground, fighting through his agony to crawl towards the door- away from the sarcophagus, away from  _ that voice _ . As soon as he made it into the empty hall, he curled against the wall and screamed as quietly as he could- voice raw and throat aching, but his own.

    For the first time in many, many years, his mind was silent, save for his own thoughts.


	2. Kid does some kidnapping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A not-so-grand escape. Luke gets a bit emotional. "Kid" gets a bit nauseous. Ethan gets a bit confused.

    The trek to his room took longer than Luke would have liked to admit, and he had to crawl for the majority of it. His limbs and senses were still readjusting to being under his command again- or maybe more so, his mind was readjusting to controlling them. Each time he tried to stand, his legs would buckle beneath him, and the halls were barren of anyone who could help him. Most of the army had been spread thin in group excursions to explore the maze, or defend the outer quarters of their camp. So Luke crawled, feeling as helpless and lowly as an injured worm, through the dim and quiet halls of the Titan Army camp. 

    The silence made him uncomfortable. In the past few years, he had rarely known true quiet- Kronos’ voice seemed to always echo in the back of his mind, if not the forefront of his consciousness, egging him on and making suggestions of ways to exact revenge, validating his anger and hatred. Now the only thing that filled his mind was pain and fear for the child in the jar. How did a twelve year old end up in  _ Tartarus _ ? And how did he  _ survive _ ? And what would happen to him now, on Death’s doorstep, too weak to move or fight back, meekly wrapped in that giant jacket like it were his only lifeline? It reminded Luke far too much of Annabeth, back when they traveled with Grover and Thalia to camp for the first time. Back then, she had worn an old jacket of his that was far too big on her, dragging along the ground when she walked and sagging off her shoulders, but it kept her warm and dry. She was even younger than this kid then- a mere seven or so, while this kid was about the usual age for a new demigod to arrive at camp for the first time and begin learning about the world of half-bloods (He looked like he had seen far more than the average new demigod, though). Even the most experienced, older demigods wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near Tartarus and hope to live to tell the tale. 

Luke didn’t remember falling asleep, though upon waking up, he realized his dreams had been unusually quiet. Most nights, Kronos would play out fantastical plans of a utopia without the gods. Demigods living peacefully on Olympus in tandem with monsters, Luke leading them at Kronos’ side. Reflecting on it, Luke wondered how he ever fell convinced Kronos would be willing to treat him as an equal when he had only ever been treated as a stepping stone. 

Staring at the ceiling from his cot, everything aching, he wondered why he almost felt like he was missing the feeling of being used. Now, he just felt strangely empty and weak and...  _ lonely _ . He missed the constant presence of Kronos, knowing that no matter how deep he fell down whatever horrible spiral this was, he was at least  _ useful  _ to  _ someone _ , that he was helping in some morbid, self-destructive (really, everything-destructive) way, and that even when a titan’s consciousness was invading his own, there was someone there with him. He had gotten so used to that constant presence that without it, he felt like something was missing.

Getting up, poking his head out into the hall, and putting on his best “I’m-leader-don’t-you-dare-mess-with-me” voice (which was harder than usual without Kronos’ force behind it, and with battered  _ everything _ ), he briefly interrogated a passing pair of demigods, and found he had slept through the latter half of the previous day after the arrival of the captured kid, and the majority of the present day.

Returning into his room, he slumped against the wall to assess his situation. He was hardly in any condition to defend himself if he got into trouble, and without Kronos or the iron skin provided by the Curse of Achilles- the latter he wasn’t sure how he knew it was gone, he could simply just feel the difference on him. Kronos had likely stripped him of that privilege when he had left- Luke just felt  _ weak _ . The lack of Kronos’ cool confidence and the emptiness in his head left Luke suddenly anxious and skittish. He had no defenses. No weapons. No armor. His powers were hardly the type that made monsters quake. And here, he was about as far into monster territory as he could get. There was no way he’d be able to fight his way out, and injured in the crowded underground, his ability to sneak around would be sorely impaired. He would just have to do his best to pretend like he still belonged, as if the big boss hadn’t discarded him. 

In the later hours, the halls weren’t too busy- only a few stray children of Hecate passing by, paying him no attention as he hugged a corner. Thankfully, being the former host of the leader of the Titan Army had its perks, and Luke was able to quickly find the room in which the new kid had been deposited in. The two Laestrygonians who had captured the kid stood guarding the door. They eyed Luke as he approached them.

“Boss says to take five,” He tried his best to stand tall, glaring the two monsters in the eyes. He probably looked almost laughable, like a strong wind would bowl him over. The Laestrygonians glanced at each other, and back to him.

“I’m here to check up on the kid. I’ll keep an eye on him.” He added, holding back a cough. The Laestrygonians seemed to consider this for a moment before shrugging and leaving their weapons at the door, walking off down the hall. Luke slipped into the room and locked the door behind him.

The kid was still wrapped up in his giant coat, now with an added layer of a blanket curled tightly around him until he resembled a skeletal half-blood burrito. His face was buried into the cot and sheets, like he was trying to become one with them. Empty, discarded water bottles laid on a little tray table beside the bed. Sheepishly, Luke let the cough he had been suppressing rise up from his chest. The kid shifted slightly at the noise, turning to glance in Luke’s direction with a surprisingly piercing gaze. Dark circles like a raccoon’s mask framed large eyes that gave Luke the unsettling impression of broken glass. His stare was far too distrusting and angry for a twelve year old.

    “Hiya,” Luke mumbled, as gently as he could. 

    The kid sank back into his sheets, seemingly trying to distance himself from Luke like a wild animal. Luke couldn’t blame him.

    “It’s okay,” He tried raising his hands, palms facing forward to show he was unarmed. “I’m here to help, I promise.”

    The child eyed him cautiously for a moment. His voice was tiny and hoarse when he finally spoke. “...You’re not being controlled.”

    “No,” Luke’s voice hitched at the simple fact. It felt strange to say. “No, I’m not being controlled anymore. I’m not with  _ Him  _ anymore. I want to help you get out of here.”

    The kid eyed him for a moment longer before moving slowly to untangle himself from the blanket. After what felt like an eternity of watching the kid move like a sloth, he sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the cot, not even touching the floor, and Luke could better see how his tattered clothes hung loosely on his tiny, bony frame. Around his skinny wrists and ankles were thick metal handcuffs, enchanted to nullify his powers, whatever they may be. The kid lifted one arm to indicate the bracer at the end.

    “Can you get these off?” Despite his wheezing voice, the question sounded more like a demand. Luke cautiously stepped forward and obliged, putting his lockpicking powers to good use. As soon as the cuffs were removed, the kid rubbed at his wrists and pulled back from Luke, tucking his knees and arms up against his chest and ducking his head. With his giant coat covering him, he somewhat resembled a very sad, grimey, punk turtle. As he wrung his hands idly, Luke noted the kid was able to close his hands completely around his wrists with room to spare. Luke’s heart hung in his throat.

    “Do we need to get anyone or anything before we go?” The kid’s voice was quiet. Luke had to figure a week without water or air probably wasn’t good for the vocal cords.

    “Ethan Nakamura.” The name slipped out of Luke’s mouth almost instinctively. “I- ...He can help us. He’s not fully on board with the army’s ideals. The two of us alone probably wouldn’t be able to get far in the states we’re in anyways.”

    The kid frowned, probably displeased with knowing that Luke had a point. "Anything else?”

    Luke considered it for a moment. “...Backbiter. K-  _ His  _ scythe. Sword. If we can help it, I don’t want to leave Him with a weapon like that.”

    “That it?”

    “...Yeah. I think so.”

    The kid hopped down from the cot, stumbling slightly as he landed despite the short distance. Luke offered an arm for support. Standing upright, the kid didn’t even reach Luke’s chest- he was probably under five feet tall, even counting the hair that stood upright on his head from the tangles.

    “Okay, hold on,” the kid grumbled, gripping Luke’s arm with more force than he would expect from such a tiny, emaciated child. Dragging Luke, the kid shuffled across the room, eyes scanning the floor and walls as though he were searching for something. Seemingly satisfied with a spot in the corner, the kid tightened his grasp on Luke’s arm and with a sudden tug, fell backwards towards the wall, pulling Luke down with him. 

    Luke barely had time to react before he was overtaken by darkness and a wave of cold. The chilling sensation of ghostly hands wisped over his skin and pulled at his clothes. Indecipherable whispers hung at his ears.

And suddenly, the light of the setting sun through trees was warming his face. Blinking and looking around, he struggled to comprehend the sudden change of setting. They were outside, above ground, the air clean and clear in the middle of the woods. Birds chirped cheerily above them. At his arm, the kid staggered and leaned against Luke’s stomach, eyes pinched shut like he was fighting off a migraine, or nausea, or exhaustion, or all of the above. Luke laid a gentle hand on the kid’s head. Exhausted, the two of them slowly sank to the forest floor, their bodies giving out underneath them.

    “Where are we?” Luke stared at the kid, who was now leaning into his ribs. He plucked a stray…  _ something  _ out of the kid’s hair and tossed it away.

    “Dunno. Away.” The kid mumbled. A man of many words, it seemed.

    “What about Ethan? And Backbiter?”

    “In a minute,” The response was muffled from being spoken into Luke’s shirt. 

    Anxiety bit at Luke’s gut. He didn’t want Ethan stuck with the army if Luke wasn’t there by his side. 

Sure enough to his word, the young boy hefted himself up after a few moments of rest, stumbling over to the trunk of a nearby large tree. He shook his hands out, widening his stance, and stared determinedly before him. He lunged forward, reaching outward into the air. To Luke’s shock, the boy’s arms seemed to disappear into thin air up to his biceps, as if he had just plunged his hands into a different plane. He seemed to struggle against something for a moment before tugging at the air, pulling his arms back into view alongside a very startled looking Ethan Nakamura- the kid’s hand clamped tightly over Ethan’s mouth- with such force that the two toppled backwards onto the grass. Luke hurried to Ethan’s side, instinctively falling onto him with a hug- which ended up simply knocking both himself and Ethan back into the dirt. Luke didn’t know why Ethan’s presence was so comforting- it had been for awhile, despite the two of them not being particularly close. Maybe it was because Ethan always seemed to have joined the Titan army more for Luke than for Kronos, which was in stark contrast to the rest of the company Luke had kept the past few years. He almost pulled away, considering suddenly that maybe hugging Ethan had overstepped a boundary, but Ethan was already half-hugging him back, curling an arm around him and staring in dazed confusion. Luke allowed himself to fall further into the hug (or, moreso, onto Ethan) and rest his face against Ethan’s chestplate. Nearby, the kid was rolling away from the two of them to go retch into a bush.

“Luke- I- What happened?” Ethan stammered. “I thought I was getting mugged for a second there. Or did I just get kidnapped? Where are we?”

“Dunno. Kid just took us wherever. Away.” He spoke into Ethan’s chest, waving a hand in the direction the child had rolled away in. Ethan glanced over in the indicated direction- the kid was sitting up against the tree, wiping his mouth on his oversized sleeve and staring watchfully back at them.

“ _ Gods almighty, _ ” Ethan whispered, sitting up as best as he could. He kept a hand on the back of Luke’s head, and Luke stayed curled against his shoulder. “What happened to  _ him _ ? And how old is he?”

“Eleven, maybe? Twelve? Laestrygonians captured him. Brought him to Kr-” Luke choked, his mouth stumbling to avoid the name. “ _ Him _ . Er. Me. You know what I mean. I had to get him out of there.”

Ethan turned his attention back to Luke, meeting his gaze, seemingly studying him for a moment. His eyebrows knit together as he examined Luke’s face, hand idly brushing the back of his head. Luke didn’t bother to make note of it or pull away. Ethan’s eyes widened with a sudden, personal processing of information, and he blinked (or, winked? Hard to tell given he only had one eye) at some internal revelation. 

“You’re not being controlled anymore.” Ethan grabbed at the sides of Luke’s face, pulling him forward while breaking into a grin. “Oh fucking  _ finally _ ! I was getting pretty bummed out over you being a meat puppet.”

    “ _ Meat puppet _ ?”

    “ _ Whatever _ . I’m just glad you’re free, Cas’.”

    Luke realized with a start that he was shaking. He didn’t know why, but the simple statement made his heart hammer.  _ You’re free. _

    He struggled to push down the tears forming in his eyes when Ethan continued.

    “So what’s going on? What are we doing out here?”

    “I- we… we left. We ran away.” Luke coughed to disguise a choked whimper. “I’m not going back, Ethan. I can’t. This kid… I need to get him somewhere safe. Camp Half-Blood, probably.” The tears were definitely falling now. Ethan frowned as the first few rolled down Luke’s cheeks. Luke tried to suppress the rising hiccups and sobs, but they bubbled from his chest despite his best efforts. “It- It  _ hurt _ , Ethan. It hurt so bad. It  _ burned,  _ and this kid- he’s already so weak, I don’t want what happened to me to happen to him, Ethan. He’s just a  _ kid _ . I don’t want him to hurt like that-”

    Ethan rubbed at Luke’s cheek with his thumb, gently hushing him. “You never stopped being a camp counselor, huh?” He clicked his tongue.

    A weak laugh escaped between the tears. Chuckling with him, Ethan gently pulled Luke back into a hug and began rubbing circles into his back. Luke buried his face back into Ethan’s shoulder. Behind Ethan, he could see the kid stumbling back towards them, swaying and dragging a large blade behind him- Backbiter. The kid dropped the weapon into the grass beside the two of them.

    “I’m going to pass out now.” The child announced. Once again true to his word, his legs buckled beneath him as his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed forward into Luke and Ethan’s arms.

    “Holy shit, this kid.” Ethan glanced down at the child now awkwardly laying across the two of them.

    “Yeah. I’ve only known him for like, five minutes, but I think he’s just like that.”

    “Does he weigh  _ anything _ ?”

    Luke gave an experimental lift. Even in his weakened state, barely able to support himself, he could lift the child with ease. “...I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure he’s mostly bones right now. We can probably carry him- We should get moving, anyways.”

    “Not when you’re like  _ that _ . You need some rest too.” Ethan set down the kid to tap a finger against Luke’s nose.

    “The army’s probably already noticed we’re gone, especially if Backbiter’s gone too. They’re going to come after us any minute, and we don’t know how far we are from the base. We need to get moving-”

    “You’re not going to get very far. Kid’s out cold anyways.  _ Rest _ , Luke.” He pulled free the sleeves of a sweatshirt tied around his waist, and pushed it gently into Luke’s chest. “We’ll set up camp somewhere around here. I’ll take first watch.”

    Luke couldn’t find the energy in himself to argue, so he wrapped the jacket around his shoulders and scooted himself and the kid to a nearby tree, lying down with his back against the bark. Ethan followed after him, carrying Backbiter. As Luke drifted off to sleep, he watched Ethan sit watchfully at his side, staring off into the woods. Like the night before, he did not dream.


	3. An on-the-road geography lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ethan is creeped out. Luke makes a call. Kid learns about the United States.

    Ethan didn’t bother waking up Luke for a second watch. In fact, Luke was the last member of their trio to wake. Ethan hadn’t bothered to sleep, and the kid woke around sunrise, startling back to consciousness as though he had been having a nightmare. He didn’t speak to Ethan as he walked shakily around the small clearing, pausing every few feet to inspect thin air. 

    In the night, Luke had turned over, and now sat curled tightly in on himself, back against Ethan’s own. His breath rasped slightly, as if he had spent the past few days in a room full of smoke. Occasionally, he would shiver as if cold. There had been a different presence to Luke ever since they had left the Titan Army camp- not his newfound shakiness or uncertainty, but more so that he no longer behaved like he was under constant surveillance. It was as if Luke was finally able to show his true colors.  _ Apparently,  _ Ethan mused to himself,  _ his true colors are ‘terrified’ _ .

And dammit, the creepy kid was looking at him again.

    Ethan wasn’t sure what to make of the kid- who was staring his way, unblinking, from across the field. Ethan wasn’t even quite sure if the kid was actually looking  _ at him _ , or just staring off into space and facing his direction while doing so, but he figured the possibilities were equally as likely. The kid was short, scrawny, scraggly, grimey, and generally physically unimposing. He looked like a strong wind would bowl him over and snap every twiggy bone in his body. He looked like he lived in a dumpster and regularly ate dirt (Ethan had to wonder if that one might actually be true). Even so, he had an unsettling air to him, like a child in a horror movie. Empty stares, ghostly porcelain skin, sunken eyes, and just the right amount of creepy kid-ness that if he started singing nursery rhymes adults would probably shit themselves.

    The kid still hadn’t blinked. How long could he hold his eyes open for?  _ Yeesh _ .

    Despite being physically unimposing, the kid’s aura was like staring at the sun- half of the time, anyways. Ethan definitely hadn’t perfected the art of reading demigods’ auras, but he had learned enough to get the basics of telling who’s powerful, who’s not. Up until recently, Luke had possessed two auras- the supernova of a Titan’s power, and then his own average abilities cowering below. Ethan’s own aura was pretty standard as well, certainly not capable of making monsters quake. The kid’s aura, on the other hand, had the strange quality of flipping between nearly nonexistent to  _ giant  _ and downright terrifying. Ethan wasn’t quite sure how he managed it- were the strength of his powers impacted by time of day? By his mood? Or did he just have the power to compact his aura into something easier to hide?

    “...Can I help you?” Ethan asked him after an eternity.

    The kid blinked. Finally.

    Ethan waited for a few moments, but the kid remained silent.

    “Nevermind then.” Ethan pulled his legs up to his chest, turning his attention back to Luke, who had begun to stir. He wheezed softly as he woke, and rolled onto is back to return Ethan’s gaze.

    “It’s morning.” Luke noted, groggily.

    “It is.” Ethan offered a hand to help him to his feet.

    Luke stumbled slightly as he stood, leaning on Ethan for support. “Why didn’t you wake me to take watch?”

    “No offense, but do you really think you would have been able to?”

    Luke mouth hung open for a moment as he struggled to find a retort, and in failing to do so, ducked his head and bit his lip. “Whatever,” he grumbled. “We should get going though.”

    Ethan nodded, and turned to call over his shoulder. “Alright. Hey, Kiddo-”

    He’d like to say he didn’t squeak, but there were few other words to describe the high-pitched noise that squirmed out of his throat as he glanced behind him. The kid had somehow silently approached the two of them during their conversation, and now stood almost directly behind Ethan, quietly staring up at him.

    “ _ Gods _ ,” Ethan hissed, drawing Luke closer. “You’re terrifying, Kid, y’know that?”

    Kid ignored the comment and limped past the two of them, leading the way into the unknown of the woods. Luke glanced at Ethan, shrugging before following after the child. With little other choice, Ethan hefted Backbiter and hurried to keep by Luke’s side. 

 

    The kid didn’t stay ahead of them for long- falling back to Luke and Ethan’s side after a few minutes. They didn’t have a real direction they were heading anyways. None of them knew where they were or where exactly they were headed, just that they were in some woods and probably, if they walked for long enough, they would find a town and hopefully not die in the process.

    “Kid?” Luke asked, fiddling with the charm of his necklace as they walked. “Rough estimate, where do you think we are?”

    Kid frowned, side-eying him. “Dunno. I’m not local.”

    “Yeah, we’re not local either. Probably.” Luke glanced around. “I doubt we would recognize random trees though, even if we were. Just, roughest estimate.”

    “...The United States?” The kid threw his arms out idly as he spoke, narrowly avoiding a collision with Ethan’s chest. Ethan doubted the kid noticed, or that it would have hurt more than a bump from a fly. 

    “The army’s camp was in New York, right?” Ethan noted. “So did we go like, north? South?”

    The kid’s frown deepened. “We weren’t in the city.”

    “New York State, not city.” Ethan corrected. “Little north of the city.”

    “ _ There’s two New Yorks? _ ” The kid groaned.

    Luke raised an eyebrow as he leaned to glance at their young companion. “Did you not know about New York state?”

    “You expect me to know all forty-eight states? I barely know four.” Kid huffed.

    “...Fifty.” Ethan interjected. He was fairly certain this was the most talkative the kid had been since they had met.

    “What?” Kid had stopped in his tracks.

    Ethan paused beside him. “Fifty. There are fifty states.”

    This was possibly also the most expressive Ethan had ever seen the kid- the child’s face curled up in confusion. “ _ When the fuck did you get two more? _ ” His voice cracked and wheezed as he spoke. 

    “Who taught you geography?” Luke looked almost as confused as the kid. Ethan couldn’t blame him.

    “ _ Whatever _ .” Kid coughed. “You said we were north of the city?”

    “Yeah, in Westchester county-ish.”

    “That doesn’t mean anything to me. I went north-east.”

    Ethan fiddled the band of his eyepatch. “More north or more east?” 

    “I don’t know!” Kid threw his hands up with a croaky snarl. 

    “It’s alright.” Luke brushed a hand at the back of Ethan’s head, freeing hair that had gotten caught under the eyepatch’s elastic. “I’m placing my bets on us being in Connecticut, though I guess it depends on how far we went.”

    “Should we head south then? Were we heading south?” Ethan shifted a step closer to Luke, tilting his head so that Luke could fiddle with his hair easier. 

    “We can just keep going the way we were for now. Get to a town, then orient ourselves from there.”

 

    As they continued on, Ethan was impressed by the lack of monsters. Every few hours he would catch the distant sound of some creature- probably a hydra, or something along those lines, but whatever they were they seemed to keep a distance. Even the normal animals of the forest gave the three of them a wide berth - birds and rabbits hurrying from their hiding spots despite still being dozens of feet away. Maybe it was Backbiter that kept them at bay, or maybe it was the kid’s flickering aura, but whatever the cause was Ethan couldn’t complain. 

    By the time the sun had set, they still hadn’t found a town, though they had found an abandoned shelter of some sort to set up camp in for the night. A small stone wall circled the structure, which itself was overgrown with plants, the wood that comprised the walls and ceiling green and rotting. Even so, it seemed structurally sound. The kid quickly got to curling up in the corner and passing out. Luke took the slower approach and seated himself down in the opposite corner, drawing Ethan’s jacket around himself. Ethan took a seat beside him.

    “I should maybe let camp know we’re coming- actually, just that we’re not against them anymore.” Luke fished his necklace out of his shirt, rubbing the charm between his fingers.

    “I don’t think you’d be able to get a good Iris Message connection right now,” Ethan threw a finger in the sky’s direction. “It’s a little late. Plus, we don’t have any drachma- That I know of, anyways.”

    “Don’t need it.” Luke held up the charm on his necklace. It was a small silver crescent shape. A sickle.

    Ethan’s eye wided with recognition. “ _ Right. _ You had a spy there. I was wondering how you kept in touch with them.”

    Luke nodded, ducking his head as he stared at the charm. “Silena’s probably the only person at camp who’d be willing to talk to me anyways. She wasn’t really on board with the whole war thing, she just agreed to work with me because I promised to keep her loved ones safe.” He gave a sad chuckle, which sounded more like half a sob due to the poor condition of his throat. “I never would have been able to do that anyways. Nobody would have been spared.”

    Ethan offered a sympathetic nod, scooting closer, though he had no idea who Silena was. Luke leaned gently against him, closing his eyes and resting his head on Ethan’s shoulder. He held the charm against his lips, and within a few seconds it began to glow faintly. After a minute or two, a feminine voice rang quietly from the necklace.

    “Luke?”

    Luke didn’t answer for a few moments. When he finally did, his voice rasped wearily. “Hey, Silena.”

    “Are you okay, Luke?” Silena, Ethan presumed it was, sounded suddenly concerned. “What do you need? What’s going on?”   
Luke nuzzled his head deeper against Ethan’s shoulder with a tired sigh. “Silena, I need you to do me a favor.”

    Silena’s voice shook slightly as she responded. “Sure, Luke. Whatever you need.”

    “I left the Titan Army.”

    She was silent for a moment. “... _ What? _ ”

    “I left. Ran away. Me and Ethan. K-  _ Er _ , I’m not being controlled anymore. There’s this kid, he… We’re bringing him to camp. Or trying to, anyways.” Luke took a shaky breath, as if fighting back tears. “I need you to get rid of your bracelet. I don’t care how. Throw it in cabin nine’s forges, leave it anonymously in the Big House- borrow Annabeth’s invisibility cap or something if you need- whatever works for you. I won’t ever mention you were involved in anything. I’m sorry I made a promise to you I wouldn’t be able to keep.”

    “...Okay. I will.” The light of the charm flickered out.

    Luke clasped the charm in his hand, holding it to his mouth for a few seconds longer before curling against Ethan’s side, burying his head into Ethan’s shirt. Ethan wrapped an arm around him, rubbing his back as gently as he could. Luke dozed off quickly, nose buried in the crook of Ethan’s collarbone, his breath wheezing slightly like a weak snore. Light rain pittered softly against the old wood of the roof, and Ethan allowed himself to close his eye and relax with Luke in his embrace.


	4. Brring brring, bracelet phone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3 POV shifts for the price of one! "Kid" has very poor taste in food. Luke is clingy. Ethan is gay. Some campers make an appearance.

    Ethan didn’t recall falling asleep. He didn’t dream, but he did wake to Luke still curled against his collarbone, and the kid hunkered in the corner, foot twitching like a dog dreaming of running. Was it risky of him to pass out like he did? Yes, but his companions were still safe and sound, and their scarce selection of belongings remained with them, so he supposed he would simply have to let the matter slide.

    At his side, Luke shifted in his sleep. The scar that spanned the side of his face curled and twitched with his cheek as he seemed to dream. Ethan had always wondered how Luke had gotten the scar, but never had the courage to ask, though he figured it would probably be rude to do so anyways. Even just considering inquiring about it when Kronos had been possessing Luke felt like standing at the edge of a skyscraper’s roof, like one wrong move would send him toppling down, down, down to become a grease splat somewhere on the pavement. Now at least the question didn’t seem quite as physically dangerous, but the thought still felt like treading on broken glass. Or barefoot on legos. Whatever Luke thought of him, their relationship felt fragile and new, and Ethan didn’t want to ruin his chances at the strange thing that was budding between them.

    Luke whimpered against Ethan’s shoulder; a tearful, hurt thing. His eyes were squeezed closed, and he curled tighter against Ethan, burying his nose into the crook of Ethan’s collar. A shiver ran up Ethan’s spine at the movement, but he managed to swallow the gasp that had attempted escaping his throat for fear of waking Luke. Luke stirred anyways, a sharp intake of breath following as his head jerked up, nose pressed close against Ethan’s ear. Ethan tried to ignore the sudden hammering of his heart and struggled to keep still. After a few moments, Luke drew away from Ethan and leaned back against their moldy shelter’s wall. Ethan tried not to feel disappointed. 

    They didn’t speak for a few moments, Ethan struggling to find words and Luke remaining quiet as he stared into the corner where their younger companion laid. Luke was first to break the silence.

    “Kid not up yet?” He asked.

    Ethan shrugged. “Not as far as I can tell.” In the corner, the kid rolled onto his stomach. 

    “ _I’m awake,_ ” he mumbled into the dirt. “I’m awake. I’m awake. You two are so _loud_.”

    “We only said like, two sentences.” Luke frowned.

    “ _Whatever_.” The kid grunted, pushing himself up until he was sitting. Ethan supposed if he was feeling that chatty so early in the morning, then perhaps he was feeling in a bit higher spirits than the previous few days.

 

    Before their trio began their morning hike to nowhere, the kid had opted to stash Backbiter somewhere safe for the time being. As far as Luke and Ethan could tell, “somewhere safe” meant the kid ungracefully placed the weapon into thin air, where it disappeared. In exchange for Backbiter, the kid produced a different sword from the mysterious interdimensional pocket where he apparently kept things and kidnapped people from. The sword was a pitch, shineless black, and about three feet long. It seemed a bit unwieldy for someone of the kid’s stature, but he wielded it as though he had trained with it his entire life. The new sword was no less intimidating than Backbiter and likely equally dangerous, but Luke seemed far less tense around the new weapon, so Ethan had no complaints.

 

    By the afternoon, they had only found a quiet road in the middle of the woods, which didn’t offer much other than a new path to follow and some roadkill, which the kid decided to poke at with a stick.

    “We could eat it.” The kid suggested. Ethan tried his best not to gag at the idea out of politeness. 

    Luke looked equally horrified. “That’s _disgusting_.” 

    “Do you have a better idea?” Kid frowned. “I haven’t eaten in probably over a week.”

    “I’m sure we can find something that isn’t dead on the side of the road.” 

    “I’m sorry, did you say _over a week_ ?” Luke’s eyes were practically bugging out of his skull. “ _How are you alive?_ ”

    “Dunno.” The kid shrugged, trailing the stick in the mud behind him as he walked off.

 

    The rain persisted meekly as a fine mist the rest of the evening, leaving the ground just annoyingly muddy enough to stick to their shoes as they trodded along. By the time they located a semi-dry spot to make camp for the evening, the band of Ethan’s eyepatch had soaked up enough rainwater to leave an irritating damp stripe across his hair, and the patch itself sat uncomfortably heavy against his cheek. He could remove it later in the night, after Luke and the kid had fallen asleep- or at least, after Luke fell asleep. The child had already found himself a spot and laid face-down upon it, and soon was wheezing quietly in slumber. Luke, once again, seated himself beside Ethan. He was still wearing the jacket Ethan had given him. 

    An hour or so after making camp, as Luke leaned gently against Ethan’s shoulder, the charm of his necklace once again began to glow. A voice Ethan had never heard before rang through.

 

 

-

 

 

    The note had only read “ _I’m sorry._ ”

    It was written in cut-up letters from magazines- the typography carefully selected from the middle of articles rather than headers and titles, as Annabeth had noted. She had suggested a search through all the cabins for cut-up magazines, though had been outvoted in favor of not doing that. Now, all cabin counselors stood around the ping-pong table, staring in awkward silence at the delicate bracelet that had been abandoned there.

    “Do we have any witnesses for who left it?” Clarisse leaned against the table, causing it to tilt slightly her way. Annabeth shooed her off of it.

    “Argus said he didn’t notice anyone, which is… odd.”

    “You’d think a guy with a hundred eyes would notice somebody walk into the Big House and leave a note.” Lee Fletcher was drawing on his arm, connecting-the-dots with his own freckles, not looking up as he spoke. Travis Stoll was at his side, stealing from his pocket.

    “Well, they were smart enough not to write the note in their own handwriting, right? And were able to not get caught? So maybe it was an Athena kid.” Travis’ brother, Connor, glanced in Annabeth’s direction. She frowned.

    “Your cabin has a lot of reading material too, right? And Hermes kids are good at being sneaky. Plus, purely statistically speaking, it’s most likely that whoever left the bracelet would be in your cabin.”

    “I don’t think that’s how it works-”

    “Well, it wasn’t anyone from my cabin, I can tell you that.”

    “Could’ve been someone here.” Travis piped up, waltzing innocently away from Lee’s back pocket, hands behind his back. “You never know.”

    “Are you claiming it, then?” Katie Gardner frowned at him from across the table.

    “Hey, I’m not a jewelry type of guy.” He offered a shrug, and then sheepishly ducked his hands back behind him upon realizing he had revealed himself holding the contents of Lee’s pockets. Lee was too absorbed in his doodling to take note.

    Annabeth eyed the cabin counselors before her. None seemed particularly suspicious, or acting out of the ordinary. Katie was poking fun at the Stoll brothers, the Stolls were up to their usual schemes. Clarisse seemed ready to bash someone’s face in. Lee looked like he’d rather be at archery practice. Silena and her boyfriend, Charles Beckendorf, were leaning against one another as Silena poked at the seams of Beckendorf’s jacket. Castor and Pollux, the Dionysus twins, seemed more focused on bouncing a ping-pong ball back and forth between the two of them than whatever was being discussed. Perseus Jackson, noble son of Poseidon and foretold child of the ‘Great Prophecy,’ had discovered one of the chairs was capable of swiveling, and was heroically spinning as fast as he could without getting sick. His face was starting to turn a shade of green quite similar to his eyes.

_I’m surrounded by idiots_ , Annabeth groaned to herself.

    For the sake of her own faith in the future of humanity, she turned her attention to the bracelet on the table. It was fairly simple. Average silver wire, a few beads, and a single crescent-shaped charm in the center. The crescent had a small handle of sorts jutting off of it, similar to a sickle. Sickles _were_ occasionally used to represent Demeter. But- no, it wasn’t a sickle. It was a scythe. Scythes were also tools used by Demeter, though they were more often used to represent…

    A realization clicked suddenly in Annabeth’s head. A scythe. “ _I’m sorry._ ” With sudden energy, she kicked out a leg to stop Percy’s spinning, and banged a fist on the table to get the attention of the other counselors. All heads spun to face her.

    Slowly, she put a finger to her lips, and as quietly as she could manage grabbed a piece of paper to write on. Thankfully, dyslexia made it easy to write upside-down so that the others could read her message.

_Everyone stay very quiet,_ She scribbled. _If I’m correct, the charm may be a communication device._

_The charm on it is a scythe. Scythes are a symbol of-_

    She didn’t have time to finish writing before Travis gasped dramatically.

    “ _Communism?!_ ”

    “...No!” Annabeth hissed, slapping at his wrist. “You’re thinking of a sickle. Now _hush!_ ”

_Remember our theory that there may be a spy among us working for the Titan army?_

    Travis gasped again

    “ _Will you shut up?_ ”

    “Sorry.”

    Connor frowned from beside his brother. Producing a pen (that he had likely stolen from Lee), he pulled Annabeth’s paper within reach and began writing.

_You think this bracelet is how the spy was communicating with the army?_

    Annabeth nodded.

    “Well,” Connor capped the pen, tucking it safely into his own pocket. Lee seemed to only just realize the pen looked familiar. “Only one way to find out, I guess.”

    Before Annabeth could protest, Connor plucked the bracelet from the table and gave the charm and experimental tap.

    “ _Hullo?_ ” He called. “Testing testing, one-two-three.”

  
  


-

 

    “ _Is this thing on?_ ”

_Connor._

    Luke struggled to hold back tears. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had heard one of his half-siblings, let alone actually spoken to them. After a moment of composing himself, he managed to choke out a response.

    “Hey, lil bro.”

    A sharp intake of breath from the other end of the connection. The sound of hands fumbling at the charm as though trying not to drop it. A shuffle of feet. No one spoke. Luke drew a deep breath before continuing.

    “Listen, I… Is Travis there? Any of the other counselors?”

    There was more shuffling. A second of static that Luke had to assume was the bracelet being dropped. Connor spoke again, voice now quiet and hesitant.

    “Yeah. Everybody’s here.”

    “Good. A lot’s been going on. I want to talk about some stuff.” He drew a hand through his hair. This would take awhile. He had no idea where to start.

    “Okay. First things first- the bracelet in front of you. You guys already know about the whole spy thing. I’m sorry about that. The spy was never working for the army itself, I can swear that. I asked them personally to keep me in the know. They only ever worked with me, and only because I made an empty promise to them. This was how I kept in touch with them. I asked them to throw the bracelet away. Get rid of it however they wanted and just... pretend they were never involved. It’s not their fault; I got them mixed up in the whole mess. But they’re out if it now. No more spy.”

    “And why should we trust you?”

    Annabeth’s sudden interjection felt like a slap to the face. She had been hurt far too much, a fair amount by himself. Probably mostly by himself. Even so, Luke knew her well- every time he looked at the grimy kid he traveled with now, he couldn’t help but remember that fearful yet viciously witty and determined seven year old that ventured to camp alongside himself, Thalia and Grover. Their own messed up little family. His heart ached with nostalgia. The tears had begun to well in the corners of his eyes.

    “I left the Titan Army.”

    “He _left?_ ” Percy’s voice piped up, muffled from distance. A bit of scuffling, and he sounded much closer. “What do you mean you _left_?”

    “They brought in this kid- he was practically dead. Honestly, he’s still pretty skin and bones. They picked him up from a real bad spot, and he’s allegedly really powerful, so _Kr-_ ” The name caught in his throat. “... _You Know Who_ … wanted to make the kid his host instead of… me.”

    “Wait, hold on.” Annabeth cut in again. “So you’re saying the Titan Lord is currently possessing a _child_?”

    “No, no, we got the kid out of there before he got the chance to swap over to a new host. Last I saw him he-” A chill ran down Luke’s spine as he recalled the excruciating pain of Kronos discarding him. His body shook and ached in remembrance, and he was dully aware of tears tracing their way down his cheeks. Ethan was staring at him with concern. “...He was back in his sarcophagus.”

    “You said ‘we got the kid out.’” Percy again. “Who’s ‘we?’ Where even are you right now if not with the army?”

    Luke tried to choke down his shaking with limited success. “I’m with Ethan and the kid. Dunno where we are right now- the kid did some sort of weird teleporting thing to get us out of the base camp. I think we’re in Connecticut. Or somewhere around there. We’re trying to get the kid to camp. Or anywhere safe, really. Just away from the army. I get if you guys don’t want me to come back. I’ll leave, that’s fine. It doesn’t matter to me. I just- this kid needs to get to camp safe. Please, I-”

    Luke stopped short as Ethan laid a hand on his shoulder, leaning in and softly shushing him. 

    “You’ve had a long day, Luke.” His voice was gentle and quiet. “You should get some rest.”

    “No, it’s fine, I-” Luke hiccuped, his crying overpowering his speech. Ethan pressed a second hand against Luke’s cheek, wiping away tears, thumb slowly tracing the scar across his face. Luke ducked his face into Ethan’s palm.

    “...Okay.” Luke sighed.

    Ethan slipped the charm from Luke’s grasp, and Luke allowed his head to be guided to Ethan’s chest. Exhaustion settling upon him, Luke slid down until he was lying against the dirt, his head coming to rest upon Ethan’s thigh like a pillow. Ethan didn’t seem to mind Luke’s presence in his lap. He stroked Luke’s hair gently, until sleep overtook him.


	5. The one bed trope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ethan and Luke have a Moment™. "Kid" finally gets to introduce himself. Will Luke ever stop trying to sleep on top of Ethan? Signs point to "no." Will "Kid" ever stop being unsettling? Signs are still pointing to "no."

    Ethan tried not to focus on the fact that whoever was listening on the other end of the charm had  _ definitely  _ heard him lull Luke to sleep. Instead, he cleared his throat and squared his shoulders to put on his best  _ Super-Tough-Veteran-Rogue-Demigod _ voice.

“‘Sup.” he coughed to the charm. 

    “Who is this?” A feminine voice rang through- stern, quick and to the point. Not the kind and pleasant one who had spoken to Luke the day before. Just from voice alone, Ethan could tell whoever this demigod was could probably kick his ass three ways to Sunday and back.

    “Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, at your service.” He had to resist the instinctive urge to bow dramatically- given that a.) the other party of the conversation could not see him, and b.) he had a lap full of sleeping Castellan which made it very difficult to bend forward.

    “Well, nice to meet you, Ethan.” The intimidatingly stern voice huffed. “I take it you’re a- uh…  _ friend _ , of Luke’s?”

    Ethan tried to ignore the rising heat in his cheeks.  _ Friend _ . “...Something like that, I suppose.” 

    “Where’s Luke?” A new voice, even gruffer than the first piped up. If Stern Voice could kick his ass three ways to Sunday and back, Gruff Voice could do it twice as many ways to next August without breaking a sweat. Damn. What did they feed those campers? Why were they all so scary?

    “He’s still here, he just fell asleep.” He gave a gentle pat to Luke’s head on his knee. “He’s been a bit emotional lately, ever since we left the Titan camp. ...And tired. He’s pretty beat up. The kid too. Y’know those stereotypical pictures of the like, starving children? And you can see the really deep bit between their ribs and pelvis and all their bones? Kiddo looks like that. Except he's also  _ really  _ pale. If he didn't have hair I'd probably mistake him for a skeleton with eyes. A skeleton trying to emulate Gerard Way. Lil’ dude is  _ super  _ fuckin’ emo. I can’t tell if he’s wearing eyeliner or if his eyelashes and  _ dark circles _ just make it look like that. But, really, I’m the only one in our little trio who’s in any kind of decent shape.”

    “...Well then, Ethan, would you mind answering some questions for us?” Stern Voice was back.

    “I’ll do my best. It’d probably help keep me awake, anyways.” 

    “Alright- First off, Luke said he left because of this kid you’re traveling with. But why did  _ you  _ leave?”

    Ethan shrugged, despite it being rather pointless to do so. “Got kidnapped, kinda. Not really- just sort of pulled away from what I was doing and teleported into the middle of a field or something. But Luke was hurt and he said he was leaving and wanted me to come with him. I was never really totally down for the Titan Army’s  _ shtick  _ anyways. The whole ‘let’s destroy Olympus and start over!’ thing? It just never really stuck for me.”

    “...Then why did you join in the first place?” A more masculine voice joined in. This new voice was livelier, like they had a lot of energy (which Ethan could relate to, at the moment), and less threatening than the other two. The faintest hints of a New York accent hung at their words- like a teen who knew their way around the city like the back of their hand and wouldn’t let you  _ forgedda’bout it _ .

    “Luke, honestly. He had this whole thing that was a lot less… harsh? I guess? Instead of ‘destroy everything and kill everyone!’ it was more like, ‘Hey, parents? Pay your fucking child support, pretty please. Also, maybe don’t take your kids’ eyes or anything like that.’ They should put that in as a footnote on whatever guidelines they’ve got up there. ‘Don’t take your kids’ eyes. They need those.’” He drew a breath, pausing for a moment. “... _ Fuck _ , I miss my depth perception.”

    He got the sneaking suspicion that absolutely no one on the other end of the charm understood what he was talking about. 

    “... _ O-kay… _ ” Stern Voice hummed awkwardly. “...Are you alright? You sound hyper.”

    “Yeah, I’m good.” He ran a hand idly through his hair. He  _ was  _ feeling rather energetic, as if he could run a hundred laps around the forest they were wandering, though he had no idea what had prompted the surge of adrenaline. His free hand fidgeted over Luke’s hair in his lap.

    “The kid you mentioned-” New York Accent spoke up again. “Luke said he was pretty powerful or something. Do you know his godly parent? What his powers are?”

    “Nope and nope.” Ethan glanced over at the kid sleeping nearby. The child was curled tightly in a ball, as if trying to make himself as small as possible. Unlike his usually stern and monotone expressions when awake, in sleep he looked almost peaceful. “He’s pretty young, so he might not be claimed yet. As far as powers go, we know he can do a weird teleport type thing, and I’ve seen him pull stuff out of thin air- and store things in thin air. Or something like that. I’m not quite sure how it works.”

    Stern Voice hummed, and a few voices began chattering indistinctly. Though he was unable to make out much, Ethan managed to pick up on a few names being tossed around- Hecate, Hermes, some more obscure minor deities.

    “What does he look like? Other than… what did you call him?” New York Accent sounded much closer to the charm now. Ethan had to assume the bracelet had moved hands.

    “Gerard Way? An opossum?”

    “Yeah, that.”

    “It’s kind of hard to tell.” Ethan looked over the kid, trying to pick out any notable traits. “Nothing really sticks out about him, though maybe it’s just ‘cause he’s so grungy right now. Lil dude looks like he hasn’t gotten a good shower in at least a month. I’d say I’m worried that something might be living in his hair, but I don’t think anything can survive in that rat’s nest.”

    More murmuring. After a few moments, a muffled adult voice joined in, and the whispering slowed to a pause. He couldn’t make out the conversation, but after the adult finished whatever they were saying, Stern Voice spoke again.

    “It’s curfew for us.” They said. “We’ll talk with you both again soon, but keep us updated, alright, Ethan? Let us know when you guys figure out where you are, or if something happens.”

    “You got it. Goodnight, you all.”

    A chorus of  _ Goodnight _ ’s echoed from the charm before it’s faint light flickered out, and Ethan was left to the silence of night- quiet save for the breathing of his companions.

The kid was more lethargic than usual in the morning. He seemed to have trouble standing as he woke, and limped slowly as he walked, as if each step pained him. Attempts at conversation were met with only vague grumbles or silence. Luke voiced his concerns of the kid possibly being sick.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s been wandering around covered in his own filth for who knows how long.” Ethan shrugged, watching the kid pad along before them. He wasn’t concerned for the child overhearing them, given the kid’s general unresponsiveness that dawn. Kid stumbled as he walked, as if dazed. Ethan’s chest panged with sympathy. “Maybe one of his cuts got infected?”

“Maybe.” Luke frowned, eyes trailing after the child. 

    The kid stumbled, ungracefully dropping to his hands and knees in the dirt with a dull thud. Luke and Ethan hurried to his side to help him, but he remained on the ground, staring with drawn brows blankly ahead of him.

“Can you stand?” Luke offered a hand, but Kid ignored it, offering only a monotone huff in response. Luke’s hand flittered around in the air for a few moments as he worked out another option, and eventually decided upon “Let me carry you.”

“Nope, nope.” Ethan laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Not while you’re like  _ that _ ; You can barely carry yourself. Let me.”

The kid met Ethan’s gaze as if to protest, but Ethan could see the weariness in his eyes. With a resigned sigh, the child held his arms out, allowing Ethan to lift him and settle him on one hip. He was even lighter than Ethan had anticipated, and clutched onto Ethan with a white-knuckled grip, shivering meekly under his tattered oversized jacket.

 

By noon, they hit civilization.

It was a decently sized town, busy enough that the sidewalks were occupied by scatterings of people going about their daily business. Ethan supposed their trio would have stuck out like a sore thumb if not for Luke pulling a small cloud of the Mist around them- an eleven year old and two teens, two-thirds of their party battered and burned, and the last third wearing ancient Greek-styled armor. Completely inconspicuous.

The receptionist behind the counter of the hotel they walked into seemed to notice their conspicuousness. She eyed the three of them suspiciously, glancing over Ethan’s armor and eyepatch and the tattered child being carried on his hip. Just their luck that they’d run into a clear-sighted mortal.

“...Convention in town?” The receptionist asked.

Luke shrugged. “Uh, yeah.”

“What’s it called?”

“Oh, uh…” He glanced helplessly in Ethan’s direction. 

Ethan could only glance helplessly back. “It’s a small one. For anime. What’s the cheapest room we can get for three?”

Staying in a hotel was not the ideal situation for questing demigods. For whatever reason, the luxury of hotels seemed to make it all the easier for monsters to find helpless half-bloods to snack upon. But the concept of getting to sleep on an actual mattress was too tempting, they hadn’t encountered any monsters so far, and the kid was horrifically in need of a shower. To say he stunk was an understatement.

“For cheapest, we have a room with one king bed, if you don’t mind sharing, and we can get you one rollaway bed.” The receptionist’s eyes darted between Luke and Ethan.

_ Sharing _ .

Oh.

Ethan was very suddenly acutely aware of the heat rising in his face. Glancing in Luke’s direction, Ethan could make out that  _ his  _ cheeks had turned red as well. Luke met his gaze, awkwardly offering a head tilt as a silent message. 

_     Well? _

    Ethan shrugged in return.  _ It’s not like you haven’t been practically sleeping on top of me since we started this trip. _

    Turning back to the receptionist, he cleared his throat. “That sounds fine. How much is it?”

    “One night?”

    “Yeah.”

    Before the receptionist could respond, the kid shifted against Ethan’s side, leaning out to reach over to the counter. He had to shake his fist until his hand emerged from the depths of his jacket sleeve, but upon completing the task he dropped a wad of cash upon the desk. Ethan wasn’t sure exactly how much money it was, but he counted multiple fifty dollar bills in the small pile. The receptionist furrowed her brows in confusion at the child, but began thumbing through the money nonetheless.

    “Does that cover it?” Kid wheezed, half into Ethan’s shoulder.

    “Uhm...yes…?” 

    With a sigh, the kid curled back against Ethan’s side. The receptionist drew a pen out from behind the desk and began running it over the bills. Deeming the currency acceptable, she handed Luke a room key and bid them a good evening.

 

    The room was spacious enough, but more importantly it was  _ clean _ . Ethan felt like he was committing a crime just by being so muddy in a room so pristine. Several chairs were distributed around the room, a TV, a bathroom, and as advertised, one large bed. Luke shivered, standing in the center of the space.

    “Reminds me of the  _ Princess Andromeda. _ ” He frowned. Admittedly, Ethan hadn’t seen much of the cruise liner that the Titan Army called their naval base, but he had heard about the more luxurious sectors of the boat. It wasn’t hard to see how the neat and tidy space would bring about memories of the ship.

    Moving to a corner, Ethan placed the kid in one of the chairs where he immediately sank back with a lazy sigh, as though the stiff hotel furniture was the most comfortable thing he had ever sat upon. 

    “Where did you get that money?” Ethan asked. The child peered up at him, squinting. His eyes reminded Ethan somberly of broken glass.

    “Power of mine. I can, uh…” The kid waved a hand lazily through the air, twiddling his fingers as he searched through his haze for the correct words. “Pull money towards me. It just kind of shows up.”

    “You certainly have a talent for pulling stuff out of thin air.” Ethan sat himself down on the floor beside the kid’s chair. He would avoid touching the bed for as long as possible before he got the chance to shower.

    “I don’t pull it out of  _ thin air _ .” The kid frowned at him. “It just kind of- here. Let me…”

    Kid squeezed his eyes shut, holding his hand out. Across the room, a few dollar bills slid out from underneath the bed and behind the furniture, loose change rolling along the carpet from the corners. Upon reaching the kid’s chair, the money shot up to meet his hand. He flicked through it idly, counting how much he had collected.

    “Handy.” Luke noted. “Usually to get that much I’d have to pickpocket somebody.”

 

    After resting for a bit- Ethan taking the time to finally remove his uncomfortable armor- their trio took a trip to a nearby store to stock up on proper supplies and new clothes (which were severely needed), making use of the kid’s convenient currency conjuring to pay for everything. Ethan personally opted to buy a new eyepatch. A very low quality eyepatch, but it was something at least to wear while he let his usual one dry from a wash in the hotel sink. 

Having finished his shower, Ethan threw himself onto the bed beside where Luke sat and stretched out, relishing in being properly clean and the comfort of an actual mattress for the first time in months. Luke, who seemed to also be doing much better after his own shower (he had gone first, as the kid had offered to go last given that he would likely take the longest), was busying himself by focusing on bandaging his various cuts and burns. Ethan watched quietly as he wrapped and unwrapped gauze around an array of yellowed injuries on his arm, adjusting it with a careful and unfortunately experienced hand.

“Hey, Luke?” Ethan poked his side to get his attention. Luke glanced down at him, still fiddling with the bandages in his hand.

“Hm?”

“I just realized- I dunno the kid’s name. What is it?”

Luke froze, staring blankly off into the air. “I… I don’t know…”

“What do you  _ mean  _ you don’t know?”

“I never asked him!” Luke shrugged helplessly. “I only knew him for like, five minutes or less longer than you!” 

Ethan laughed. “Guess we’ll have to ask him, then. Probably a bit overdue.” He sat up, picking up a roll of gauze from the first aid kit at Luke’s side. “Here, let me help you.”

Luke scooted closer, offering an arm and watching Ethan’s face as he worked. 

“Ethan... can I ask you kind of a personal question?” Luke’s free hand fiddled with the seam along the side of his pant leg.

“Depends.” Ethan quirked an eyebrow in Luke’s direction. “What about?”

“...Your eye.”

“Sure- on one condition.” He hummed. “I get to ask about your scar.”

“Deal.”

“Ask away, then.”

Luke fidgeted, shifting his legs until he was sitting on his feet, then kicking his legs about again. ADHD never mixed well with being anxious.

“This might sound kind of insensitive…”

“It’s alright.” Ethan chuckled. “Anything goes. Shoot.”

Luke patted his sides. Shifted his legs again. His gaze darted around the room. Ethan couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his lips as he watched. He honestly didn’t mind Luke asking, but the cautious way he struggled to word his inquiries as gently as possible was rather adorable.

“...Why do you wear the patch?”

Ethan shrugged. “It’s not exactly pretty under there. And it’s not like I could see out of it, anyways.”

“Do you have an eye under there? Or like, a glass eye?”

“Nope.” Ethan grabbed a bit of tape to secure the bandage he was working on. “It’s just kind of nothin’.”

“...Can I see it?”

Ethan met Luke’s gaze. He had ducked his head, and he glanced shly between Ethan’s good eye and his eyepatch.

“Promise not to get freaked out?”

“I’m not exactly one to judge.” Luke tapped the side of his face, where his scar trailed across his cheekbone. Fair enough. Ethan had to suppose if he was going to show that eye to anyone, he trusted Luke the most.

He placed down the gauze in the first aid kit, and tugged the patch off of his head to reveal the scarred pit beneath it. It wasn’t a graceful or dramatic motion, and it left his hair sticking up at odd angles where the band had wrapped around, but it wasn’t exactly a graceful thing to reveal. Luke stared quietly at the divot, his hand slowly rising until it hovered cautiously next to Ethan’s face. Ethan had to turn his head slightly to watch the hand’s movement, given it was in his blind spot, but leaned into it after a moment. Luke’s fingers flickered slightly at the touch, but settled with brushing back Ethan’s hair. 

“What happened to it?” Luke whispered. 

“Made a deal with my mom. A trade of sorts, I guess. I wanted to make a difference in the world. She said it’d cost my eye. I agreed and she just kind of…” He made a scooping gesture beside his face. “...Took it.”

Luke drew a breath through his teeth. “I thought my dad was bad…”

“Godly parents.” Ethan shrugged with a chuckle, nuzzling at Luke’s hand. “What can you do about ‘em?”

“So… you wanted to ask about my scar?” Luke drew his thumb over Ethan’s cheekbone. 

“Yup.” Ethan lifted a hand to Luke’s face, holding it just a few inches away. Silently asking for permission, just as Luke had done. Luke leaned into it, sighing as he did.

“I’ll keep it short- how’d you get it? Your dad?” Ethan ran a finger gently over the scar.

Luke smiled sadly. “No, not really. It was from a quest for my dad- he wanted me to steal these golden apples, and the tree was guarded by a dragon. I really wanted to impress him, cause I figured if I did good he might actually pay attention to me for once. I got kind of reckless and the dragon…” With his free hand, he mimed a claw dragging across the side of his face. 

“Ouch.” 

“Yeah.” His smile fell, and his thumb trailed idle circles beside Ethan’s eye. “My dad didn’t even seem to notice when I got the apples to him. When I got back to camp nobody seemed to notice either. No fanfare. No ‘congrats’ or pats on the back or anything. People wouldn’t look me in the face. It was just kind of…”

“...Quiet? Lonely?”

“Yeah.” Luke ducked his head, leaning close until their foreheads touched. “Lonely.”

Ethan struggled to ignore the sudden proximity of their faces. The drawn pout of Luke’s lips. His sorrowful blue eyes. The hammering of Ethan’s own heart.

He was saved by the bathroom door opening. 

The kid was almost unrecognizable. He was still battered and bruised, and his clothes hung loosely off his slight frame, but he at least looked  _ human _ . With the layer of grime removed, his complexion looked a bit healthier. His broken glass eyes were a little brighter. And his  _ hair _ \- Before, it had been greasy and matted and full of unknown debris of questionable origin. It had stuck up at odd angles, or hung limp and straight and covered in dirt. Ethan hadn’t even been completely sure what color it was. Now, the kid’s hair was detangled and fluffy, curling every which way and framing his face. With the grossness removed, it even looked a bit lighter- a deep brunette instead of pitch black. He had outfitted himself with fresh clothes- a black t-shirt with dancing skeletons across the front, and baggy, dark grey sweatpants.

The kid stared awkwardly at the two of them, frozen mid-step and shoulders tense as though he wasn’t quite sure what he had walked into. Ethan and Luke scooted apart from one another, Ethan grabbing his eyepatch and sliding it back over the side of his face.

“Hey, kiddo.” Luke greeted. His cheeks were flushed red. “You’re looking better.”

The kid remained silent, but slowly unfroze, shoulders relaxing as he continued forward. He dropped his old tattered clothes (or rather, what remained of them) into a chair, and casually stuck his hand into the wall. It took Ethan a moment to process the fact that the kid’s arm was not in fact in the  _ wall itself _ , but rather the air in front of the wall. Or whatever. He still wasn’t quite sure how that power worked. Arm reappearing, the kid produced a few bottles of nectar and a bar of ambrosia- always important for a demigod on the go. He then joined the two of them on the bed, stumbling a bit as he clambered up onto the mattress, and grabbed a roll of gauze from the first aid kid to begin dressing his own wounds. Reminded of the task he had previously been occupied with, Ethan sheepishly returned to bandaging Luke. 

“Hey, kid-” Luke began. “I realized we never asked- what’s your name?”

The kid met Luke’s eyes with a cold, blank stare. “Nico.”

“Nico…?”

“di Angelo.”

“Nico di Angelo.” Ethan mentally filed the name away. It sounded Italian. “Nice to formally make your acquaintance, Nico. I’m-”

“Ethan Nakamura. Son of Nemesis. I know.” The kid-  _ Nico- _ interrupted, then turning to Luke. “And you’re Luke Castellan. Son of Hermes and May Castellan.”

Luke shivered, goosebumps rising on his arm under Ethan’s hands. “I’m terrified to ask how you knew that.”

“I have sources.” Nico shrugged, finishing wrapping practically his entire arm in gauze. Satisfied with partially turning himself into a mummy, he scooted to the edge of the bed and began tugging at the blankets with limited success at freeing them.

“Yup. Terrifying.” Luke scooted back closer to Ethan, taking his hand for quiet reassurance. Ethan tried not to pay attention to his heart skipping a beat.

“Do you know your godly parent yet?” He offered, partially to distract himself.

Nico paused his futile attempts at bedding liberation to consider the question. “Technically, I’m unclaimed.”

“ _ Technically? _ ”

“Technically.” He shrugged, returning to tugging at the sheets.

“...Do you think you know who it might be though?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ve got some pretty good evidence.”

“Oh?” Luke leaned forward with interest. “That’s good. What promising clues have you got so far?”

“I’ve spoken with him.”

Luke nodded slowly. “That… is certainly strong evidence. You said you weren’t claimed yet, though? If he knows about you-”

“ _ Technically _ .” Nico turned to frown in Luke’s direction. “My dad is well aware of me. There just aren’t lights popping up above my head or anything.”

With a final tug, Nico managed to partially free a blanket from it’s imprisonment, and slid under the sheets as close to the edge of the mattress as he could manage without falling off. Closing his eyes and curling tightly in on himself, he seemed to bask in the luxury of having an actual bed for once. Ethan had to wonder when the last time the kid had even  _ seen  _ a proper bed was. Weeks? Months? Knowing what he did of the kid, the latter seemed more likely.

“Wait, ki- _er,_ _Nico_ \- we can order dinner, y’know.” Luke tugged lightly at the sheets to get the kid’s attention. Nico seemed to perk up at the mention of food, peering over the blanket with intrigued, bright broken eyes. 

The hotel thankfully had computers to make up for the lack of phones in their trio’s inventory. Soon enough, they were situated with a pizza that Luke had to slowly tear apart the slices of to keep Nico from consuming in one bite and making himself sick, along with miscellaneous sides that had to be regulated to guard the kid from his own ravenous appetite. Nico had opted to venture down to the lobby with Luke and Ethan despite still limping, though admittedly with a new oversized jacket hiding his bandaged arms and skeletal frame, from a distance, if one squinted, Ethan noted he looked almost like a normal kid. He sat bundled in hotel sheets on the bed, chugging nearly a whole bottle of water in a single gulp, and probably trying not to throw up the third slice of pizza Luke and Ethan had advised against. 

    Ethan and Luke had opted to claim the opposite end of the bed, given that it was large enough for all three to comfortably share- particularly due to Nico being so small, and Luke not seeming keen on kicking his habit of sleeping on top of Ethan any time soon. He wasn’t sprawled out on top of Ethan like he had been when Nico had pulled him out of his patrol route and into the woods, but still rested his head on Ethan’s shoulder while nestled close against his side, and laid his arm across Ethan’s stomach to be able to play with Ethan’s hand as they laid in silence.

Or, almost silence.

A quiet buzzing sounded from between Ethan’s shoulder and Luke’s chest, as though an angry bumblebee had been caught between them and was trying to break free. Ethan shifted slightly to not be pressed against whatever it was, and shared a confused glance with Luke, who began fishing around in his shirt collar. As soon as he produced the scythe charm of his necklace, the buzzing faded, and the charm glowed lightly.

“You can put your charm-phone on vibrate?” Ethan asked.

Luke hushed him, tapping at the charm. “Hello?”

“Luke?” Oh hey, it was Stern Voice from the night before.

Luke stiffened, pressing closer against Ethan. “Hey, Annabeth. It’s me.”

“We wanted to get an update from you before curfew tonight. Fill us in. What’s happened since yesterday?”

“We confirmed our location- my guess was right, we’re in Connecticut. We’re not too far from camp, but it’ll probably still take us a couple days to get there.”

“Anything else?”

“Booked a hotel room.” Ethan noted.

“Yeah, got a place to sleep, patched ourselves up, got our bearings- I think that’s all.” Luke counted on his fingers for a brief moment, reviewing the events of the past day. “Yeah, pretty sure that’s it.”

“And the kid?”

“Oh, yeah, Kiddo’s doing a lot better. He actually looks alive for once.”

“Hey!” Nico poked his head out of his cocoon of bedding to frown in their direction. “I heard that.”

“Sorry, bud.” Ethan chuckled. Nico huffed and sank back into the blankets.

“We’ll be moving again the morning.” Luke continued. “We should be able to make better time now that we know where we are.”

Stern Voice- “ _ Annabeth _ ,” apparently,- paused for a moment, as if delicately selecting her words. “Stay safe. Get to camp in one piece.”

“We will.” 

“And Luke?”

“Yeah?”

Her voice lowered to a dangerous edge. “If this is a trick know that, when you get here, I’m going to be the first one in line to punch your nose in.”

Luke chuckled, that lonely weariness creeping in at the corners of his voice. “I know.”

“...Goodnight, Luke.”

“Goodnight, Annabeth.”


	6. Be gay, do crimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Action! Drama! Gay! Sad boys! Best mom! This chapter has it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER IS SO MUCH LONGER THAN ALL THE OTHERS. Or at least it felt longer while writing it. Thank you all for your patience!! Next chapter should hopefully come reasonably faster. My google doc for this fic is at like 35 pages single-spaced in tiny font and it makes my laptop lag lmao.

    The TV had turned on during the night.

    Luke wasn’t sure when- he had probably been asleep at the time. Even with his eyes closed he could hear the whir of electronics. Nico sat at the end of the bed, curled like a gargoyle, staring blankly and wide-eyed at cartoons on screen. He seemed too absorbed in the television to notice Luke untangling himself from a groggy, whining Ethan, or to react as Luke scooted beside him.

    “Whatcha watchin’?” Luke asked.

    Nico mumbled something quietly. Luke wasn’t entirely sure it was English, but it sounded vaguely like an “I dunno.”

    “It any good?”

    “It’s in color…” Nico blinked at the screen, awed. “...Bright.”

    “Yeah, it sure is.”

    “How did they do that?”

    “The color?”

    “Yeah,” he pointed at the TV. “How’s it not black and white? Or only one color?”

    “It’s a TV. It’s got LEDs or something.” Luke shrugged. “Have you not seen a TV before?”

    “No, I have, but not like _that_.” Nico met Luke’s gaze. His broken glass eyes were practically sparkling. “I know they figured out like, color for movies, kinda, but since when do they do that for TV?”

    “Kiddo,” Ethan interjected from across the mattress. “Where are you from?”

    “I-”

    The awe fell from Nico’s face, confusion slowly taking its place as he processed the question.

    “I… I don’t know.”

    Ethan sat up suddenly, exchanging a concerned glance with Luke. “You _don’t know?_ ”

    “I can’t remember.” Nico frowned, eyes darting between the two of them. “I haven’t been able to remember a lot of things lately.”

    “Good to know.” Luke looked over their trio. An eleven year old with amnesia, a son of Nemesis with no depth perception, and probably the most wanted demigod in the world besides Perseus Jackson. Clearly, the odds were in their favor.

    Which was to say, there was absolutely no way in Hades the three of them would make it to camp alive.

    Nico had to be dragged from the TV screen, which was probably for the best as he was still limping. He appeared to be asleep, resting on Ethan’s shoulder as he was carried. The only sign of him being awake being the occasional flicker of dollar bills and quarters flying up his oversized jacket sleeves like a currency vacuum as they wandered the town.

    The only bus available, of course, did not travel all the way to New York. Tracking down an airport to take a plane seemed far too tedious. Biking all the way didn’t seem plausible, given Nico’s state (and Luke’s, though he was hesitant to admit it). Walking all the way was out of the question.

    With no ideas cropping up, they paused for lunch.

 

    “Got any more tricks up your sleeve, Kiddo?” Luke reclined in his booth, poking idly at his food as he remembered it existed between trains of thought.

    Nico paused shoveling a fist full of fries into his mouth to process the inquiry. “...Nope.”

    “No more teleporting?” Ethan quirked an eyebrow.

    “Too tired.” Nico dropped a new fry to its doom in his jaws. “Do we really have to go to camp?” He added with a frown. “I don’t like it there.”

    “Wait- You’ve been to Camp Half-Blood?” Luke froze. “Why did you leave?”

    “ _I didn’t like it there._ ” Nico narrowed his eyes, chewing sternly. “I just said that.”

    “It’s the safest place for demigods to live that we have.”

    “Didn’t seem very safe to me.”

    “‘ _Safest’_ doesn’t always mean _‘safe.’_ ” Ethan noted. “Just _safer_ than most places.”

    “I’d prefer to try my luck out here.” Another fry lost to the chasms of Nico’s insatiable maw. “I was doing pretty well on my own.”

    “Didn’t you end up in _Tartarus_?”

    Nico grimaced as the words left Luke’s mouth. “Don’t remind me- but I still got out.”

    “We have nowhere else to go,” Luke tried.

    Nico huffed, but couldn’t seem to find an argument. 

    “Okay, so how do we get there though?” Ethan gestured with a burger. “The Labyrinth?”

    “ _No!_ ” Nico and Luke yelped in sync. 

Ethan startled, sinking back into his seat. “ _Oookay_ , not that then, I guess.”

“The Titan Army is still down there,” Luke shifted uncomfortably, memories bubbling to the surface of his consciousness. “They probably won’t be too happy to see us.”

“And too many pits in the ground,” Nico added. “Too easy to fall. I don’t want to do that again.”

“Then yup, not doing that.” Ethan stuffed the burger in his mouth- an excuse to stop speaking.

Nico made no further comments, simply opting to attempt shoving another handful of fries into his mouth. They stuck out past his lips, making him look vaguely reminiscent of an Ood from _Doctor Who_. 

Luke propped his chin up on his folded hands, mulling over their options. He only dimly noted the waiter returning to offer bringing over their bill, and Ethan putting a hand over Nico’s mouth to prevent him from ordering yet another appetizer. For someone so small, that kid’s stomach was bottomless.

Their travel options were limited. Walking would take too long, not that they were in any shape to walk to Long Island- even with the major setbacks the Titan Army faced, they’d probably be back on schedule and storming Camp Half-Blood before their trio made it back into New York. With the Labyrinth, they could possibly make it in time, but then they were more likely to run into the Titan Army along the way, or other monsters lurking Underground, or- as Nico had helpfully pointed out- fall right into the realm where monsters were reborn. None of the possibilities sounded ideal, and the thought of running into his old _Brain Buddy_ made Luke’s lacerations ache.

    Public transportation also wasn’t an option- of the little that there was, it certainly didn’t go to New York. Tracking down an airport and flight just one state over also wasn’t likely, though given that Luke had stolen Zeus’ lightning bolt just a few years prior, he didn’t feel too keen on sticking his face within the god of thunder’s smiting range any time soon anyways.

   

    Their trio filed out of the restaurant, narrowly avoiding collision with a loud cluster of college age kids boasting about expensive cars bought with their parents’ money in between offensive language. Nico shied away from the group, huddling close to Luke’s leg and holding his bag of leftovers like a stuffed animal. Luke couldn’t help but note a pained fearfulness glinting in the kid’s eyes each time the clique let loose a new round of slurs. He placed a gentle hand on Nico’s shoulder.

    As soon as they had passed, Luke made an exaggerated gagging face. Ethan chuckled beside him, saying nothing but making a disgusted face of his own in agreement. Nico stared silently after the group as they disappeared into the diner.

    The parking lot outside the restaurant was mostly empty. Of the cars that were there, most had parked in the spots that lined the sidewalk around the building. Luke had never been much of a car guy, but just about any old schmuck could tell the average minivan from the modified cars owned by rich white people who had inherited the family mansions. 

    Sticking out like a sore thumb in the midst of a dozen drab Dodges or whatever sat a bright, sporty, sparkling red convertible. The top was down, trash was kicked under the seats, and bizarrely enough, the keys dangled from the ignition. 

    Luke suddenly remembered that he had a driver’s license.

    “Hey, guys... how do you feel about sport cars?”

    Ethan glanced between Luke and the vehicle. “...This sport car specifically?”

    “Finders keepers?”

    “This is a _parking lot_ , Cas’. Not a lost and found.”

    “They left the keys in and the top down! Come on, we need transportation, this thing is just _begging_ to be stolen, and I’m _really_ good at stealing.”

    Nico had already thrown his bag of food in the passenger seat, and was struggling to crawl over the door. “I call shotgun.”

    Luke lifted him up and into the seat, where Nico buckled himself in with enthusiastic deadpan. Luke climbed into the driver's seat. 

    “ _Luke_ ,” Ethan whined. “The owner is probably inside! They can probably see us!”

    “Not with a bit of the Mist.” Luke grinned slyly and snapped his fingers- and old trick he had learned alongside Thalia when the two of them had traveled together. A quick cloud of the Mist, and most mortals wouldn’t question anything. “Plus, I’ll bet you fifty bucks the owners are that group of assholes that walked by us when we left.”

    Ethan frowned, but climbed into the backseat anyways. “You don’t even _have_ fifty bucks.”

    “Alright, fine, then I’ll take you to a movie or something after all this is said and done, how about that?”

    In the rearview mirror, Ethan’s cheeks flushed red. He ducked his face into his shoulder. “Whatever.”

    The engine roared to life, and as he pulled the car out of the lot, Luke cheerily took note of the huddle of college students standing around the now empty parking spot in confusion.

 

    In the early afternoon, the highways were clear of rush hour traffic, and they breezed across the state border into New York in record time. Ethan insistently fiddled with the stereo as Luke drove, reaching awkwardly from the backseat to haphazardly press buttons and twist knobs until he was satisfied with the song that was playing. Nico bounced in his seat, gawking at the various scenery as it whizzed by. He must have been feeling in high spirits, or perhaps his throat wasn’t feeling quite as dead as the days prior, since he was far more talkative than usual.

    “That sign just changed pictures!”

    “Yeah, they do that sometimes.”

    “That car has a dog!”

    “Yup.”

    “What’s that noise the radio is making?”

    “The music?” Luke spared a glance in Nico’s direction. The kid was poking at the buttons at random, staring curiously at the screen as though it were a foreign object.

“Well, yeah, but what _is_ it? It sounds cool.”

“That’s synth-pop.” Ethan leaned forward in between the seats. “Y’know. Uses electronics for instruments.”

Nico gave the screen another experimental poke of awe. “I didn’t know they could do that.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”

“That’s a big bird.”

Nico had turned his attention to the sky, where a large dark shape was gliding far above the car. Luke could only keep his eyes on it for so long before having to look back at the road.

“Oh, it’s flying down.” Nico continued. “Wait, no, that’s a lawyer.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ” It took every ounce of willpower in Luke’s body to not slam on the brakes.

“No, wait, that’s a Fury.”

    Ethan drummed a hand on the shoulder of Luke’s seat. “Swerve! _Swerve_!” 

    Luke did as he was told. The car careened swiftly across the lanes of traffic.

    _Tk tk tk tk tk_ the blinker clicked cheerfully.

    “ _Aaaaaaa!_ ” Luke and Ethan screamed less cheerfully. Nico was surprisingly calm as the Fury dug her claws into the trunk of the convertible and hissed. 

    “Hello Megaera.” Nico greeted the Fury.

    “ _THIEVES!_ ” Megaera roared.

    “Oh. Right.”

    “‘Oh, right’ what?!” Ethan yelped. Luke spun the wheel in the opposite direction, sending the car gliding across all lanes once again. A chorus of annoyed honks sounded from the other cars. The Fury swung off the trunk for a moment, but clung strong with her claws. As the car rightened again, she pulled herself back onto the hood.

    “Megaera is the punisher of thieves, but usually dead ones.” Nico tilted his head, as if this were only mildly peculiar. “Pretty sure we’re not dead yet. I think I’d know.”

    “When your father finds out about this, you are grounded, young Lord!” The fury spat in Nico’s direction.

    _Young lord?_ As much as Luke wanted to stray on the thought, the bat lady clinging on his stolen car and trying to kill them was a bit distracting.

    “You can’t ground me!” Nico complained casually. “You’re not my mom!”

    “ _Kiddo_!” Ethan had unbuckled himself and was clinging onto the seats for dear life. He kicked cautiously at the Fury, trying to dislodge her from the metal. “Focus, please! Got a weapon, maybe?”

    “Yeah, whatever.” Nico rolled his eyes and pulled a knife from under his jacket. Where exactly he had been storing it, it was unclear. Luke chose not to question that either. Instead, he pulled onto the grass median and slammed on the breaks. The car hitched to a halt, throwing all passengers sharply forward. Knife fights in an open convertible while going sixty miles per hour was generally not advisable. Nico didn’t seem to particularly care. He nonchalantly swung his knife to deflect a grabbing claw or two, look more as though he were bored with his math homework rather than fighting for his life.

    “Have you been mucking around in Tartarus, young man?” The Fury sniffed at the air, her voice like nails on a chalkboard. “You’re not allowed down there!”

    “I figured that out.” Nico huffed. 

    With the car no longer in motion, the Fury began fluttering around the vehicle, digging her claws into the metal as she ducked around the three of them and swiped at whatever was in reach. With a couple of lucky strikes, she managed to rake her talons across Luke’s shoulder and arms. One stray swing lightly caught Ethan across the side of his face, knocking his eyepatch askew.

    “Haha!” He cheered, holding a hand across the thin new cuts. “There’s nothing vital there for you to hit!”

    The Fury growled and swiped again, and Nico poked at her around her strike. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic about the fight.

    Luke threw open the car’s door and rolled onto the grass. The Fury followed his movement, her claws punching holes in the upholstery.

    “ _Nico!_ ” He yelped. “Stab her, please! Or summon more weapons?”

    “Do I _have_ to?” Nico frowned. “My dad might get mad about that.”

    “He would!” The Fury crowed.

    “We’re going to die!” Ethan swung another leg at the Fury. She caught it, pulling him out of the car and onto the grass where Luke lay. He landed with a grunt.

    “Okay, _fine_.”

    With sudden agility, Nico shot out of his seat and onto the Fury’s back. She hissed only for a moment as Nico drew the blade across her throat, silencing and reducing her to a poof of golden dust. Now unsupported, Nico tumbled into the back seat, the knife remaining suspended in midair where he had let go of it. 

    Ethan groaned as he sat up, leaning onto Luke as he pulled himself up. “Couldn’t you have done that sooner?”

    “I thought it’d be rude.” Nico poked his head over the edge of the car door, which now resembled swiss cheese. The knife decided to stop defying gravity, and plummeted down to embed itself neatly into one of the backseat cushions. If Nico noticed, he didn’t show it.

    “Awfully rude of her to try and kill us in the first place.” Luke brushed dirt and grass off of his clothes. “Why us, anyways? If she’s out to punish thieves, why’d she track down us specifically?”

    “We’re high-profile, probably.” Nico draped himself over the car door, arms dangling down. “You both are ex-high ranking members of the Titan army, and I’m… me.”

    “But we _left_!” Ethan threw his hands up as he stood. “Couldn’t we catch a break because of that?”

    “Your- er, _our_ defenses are low. Safety in numbers. We don’t exactly have high numbers here. You’re not protected by the Titan Army anymore, so it’s the perfect time to try and kill you.”

    Luke pulled himself back into the car, Ethan following suit into the passenger’s seat. Nico frowned at his spot being stolen, but didn’t complain. Instead, he pulled the knife out of the cushion beside him and stuffed it back into the mysterious depths of his jacket. Luke had to wonder if he was hiding a secret pocket dimension in there.

    The engine grumbled as it started, sounding unhappy with its carapace suddenly having been hole-punched. Luke couldn’t blame it. The car shuddered as the engine’s complaints evened out, and they were on the road again. The new holes punctured into the metal whistled annoyingly in the wind and directed cold gusts of wind across Luke’s arms and legs. 

 

    They were just outside of the city when the car finally gave out.

It was impressive that it had lasted so long. It shuddered and grumbled, and Luke took the sign to turn on to a less busy street and pull over. As the car rolled to a stop, the doors gave one last creak before falling off. 

    “Woah,” Nico blinked at the metal teetering back and forth on the side of the road.

    The car had shuffled off its mortal coil beside a small park, which sat cheerily across from the Hudson. New York City rose like spires into the sky across the river, backlit by the sun setting. Camp at least wasn’t too far- still a hike, but better than across the state.

    Ethan slid out of his seat, kicking aside one of the now detached metal slabs. Luke followed suit, lifting Nico out of his seat and onto a hip, where Nico quickly wrapped himself around Luke’s torso like a baby koala. 

    “Are we just gonna leave the car here?” Ethan poked at what was left of the vehicle. “People are probably gonna question it.”

    Luke shrugged. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s not in the middle of the road and it’s not like they can fine us.”

    “True.” Ethan hummed. “So what’s next? Set up camp again or- er, try to get to _actual_ camp?”

    “There might actually be a third option. Maybe not the best idea, but a third option.”

    “We’ve had nothing but bad ideas since we started raising Titans.” Ethan offered a sly smirk. “What’cha got.”

    “Percy Jackson.”

    Nico wriggled in Luke’s arms. “Oh not _him_.”

    “You know him?”

    “Unfortunately.” Nico huffed. “So what does this have to do with him?”

    “He lives in the city, if I remember correctly. He’s at camp right now, if our bracelet relays are anything to go by, but we might be able to ask his mom about helping us get transportation, or at least seeing if she can help get us a safe place for the evening.”

    “Okay, but where _exactly_ does he live? Manhattan? Brooklyn?” Ethan frowned.

    “...No idea.”

    “I know where.” Nico wriggled in Luke’s arms again, forcing Luke to finally place him down. He scuttled forward as best as he could with his limp, like a cockroach missing a leg, and scowled over his shoulder for the two of them to follow.

    “I thought you weren’t from New York?” Luke hurried to keep by Nico’s side. For someone injured and short, he could move quickly when he wanted to. “How do you know where Percy lives then?”

    “I told you, I have sources.” Nico waved a hand through the air. 

    “Do you have to be on the ground for your _‘sources’_ lead you?” Ethan seemed to have far easier time keeping pace with Nico. Luke took a mental note that maybe he was in worse shape than he thought.

    “No, why?” Nico glared above him, having to crane his neck back to meet Ethan’s gaze. Ethan simply swept Nico into his arms, settling him on a hip. Nico grunted with complaint, but tucked his head against Ethan’s shoulder and swung an oversized jacket sleeve to point onwards.

    Nico’s directions guided them for several hours, along the Hudson, onto a ferry, through Hell’s Kitchen and Midtown Manhattan, and up to the steps of an apartment complex. As they neared the building, Nico’s arm swung up, several floors above them, and then out towards Luke. Luke stepped within arm’s reach of Nico, who grabbed blindly at the air until he grasped Luke’s jacket.

    Then the three of them were launched into darkness.

    It felt like being hurled out of a slingshot and into a freezer. Just as when Nico had teleported Luke out of the Titan Army camp, cold winds tugged at Luke’s limbs like ghostly hands, incomprehensible whispers echoing at his ears. 

    Just as suddenly as they had been thrown into darkness, they were indoors. Fluorescent lights shined down warmly on them. An apartment door stood before them. 

    Ethan stumbled in place, holding Nico tight.

    “ _Holy shit,_ ” he whispered, voice shaking. “Give some warning next time, Kiddo.”

    Nico mumbled sleepily, though Luke couldn’t make out if it was an apology or cussing. 

    “Is this the right apartment?” Luke held his hand hesitantly a few inches from the door. Nico didn’t bother unburying his face from Ethan’s shoulder, and simply flopped his arm out and gave a thumbs-up. Cautiously, Luke knocked.

    “One moment!” Someone called out from within the apartment - sweet and light, the faintest hints of Percy in her voice. Luke couldn’t help a chill running down his spine. Percy must have mentioned him to Miss Jackson, probably detailing the several instances the two of them had tried to kill each other (usually being Luke’s fault, admittedly). He wouldn’t be surprised if she refused to let him stay.

    The door opened, revealing a short woman, probably in her mid-thirties. Her dark brunette hair was tied in a loose ponytail swept over her shoulder. She wiped her hands on her blue plaid apron, eyeing the ragged group before her.

    “Friends of Percy’s, I presume?” She raised an eyebrow.

    Nico grunted in affirmation, lifting his head to inspect the new presence. 

    “Come on in, then, make yourselves at home,” Miss Jackson smiled warmly.

    She skirted out of the doorway and into the kitchen, where she seemed to be in the midst of making dinner. Books and notebooks filled most flat surfaces, half penned-in with neat blue script. Ethan slid around the occupied coffee table and laid Nico down on the couch, where he immediately curled into the cushions and sighed comfortably. Luke hovered awkwardly nearby, leaning on the back of the couch.

    “So, why don’t you all introduce yourselves? What brings you here? Heading to camp or questing?” Miss Jackson leaned back against a counter, watching the three of them with interest.

    “The little guy on the couch is Nico,” Ethan began, gesturing to where Nico laid. “I’m Ethan, and this is-”

“Cas.” Luke smiled as warmly as he could manage, hoping his unease wasn’t apparent. 

“Cas, yeah.” Ethan eyed Luke curiously, but made no note of the fib. “We were on our way to camp, but it was getting late so we were trying to get somewhere safe for the night.”

“Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need,” Miss Jackson turned back to the stove, stirring something that Luke couldn’t make out from his position. “I could drive you three there tomorrow if you’d like- I have to pick up Percy anyway. He has school.” She smiled over her shoulder. “Would you like anything to eat-?”

“Yes please, ma’am.” Nico shot up like a bullet, peeking over the back of the couch.

 

    The three of them collected at the coffee table to eat the dinner provided by Miss Jackson (who insisted they were welcome to call her “Sally,” though it felt far too informal for a stranger, particularly the mother of his formerly self-proclaimed arch nemesis). The more time Luke spent around her, the easier it was to see why Percy was so willing to go to the Underworld just to get her back. Heck, Luke felt as though he might also be willing to trek downstairs and give Hades an earful on Miss Jackson’s behalf. Her attentiveness made Luke’s heart ache for his own mother, and what could have been if she wasn’t so batshit crazy. The thought of his own parents sent a chill up his spine as memories of green smoke and cowering in closets rushed back to him. _Is this what having a decent parent is like?_

    Nico dozed off on the couch quickly after inhaling his food, and Ethan had retreated to use the bathroom, leaving Luke alone with Miss Jackson.

    “If you don’t mind me asking,” She began, scrubbing idly at dishes as she spoke. “I was a bit curious- Percy’s told me a lot about some of his friends at camp.”

_Uh oh._

    “I don’t recall him ever mentioning the three of you. Then again, he has mentioned a lot of names, so maybe I just forgot.” She continued. “You do remind me an awful lot of someone he mentioned once though - blond hair, blue eyes, scar across the side of his face. I think his name even had ‘Cas’ somewhere in it, too.”

    _Busted_.

    She knew- Luke could tell she was just feigning ignorance to be polite. Anxiety wracked his brain, swallowing him in _what-ifs_. She’d kick him out. Kick all of them out. Most clear-sighted parents of demigods kept weapons stocked in their homes- maybe she’d just kill him outright, or threaten him for trying to kill her son. He’d be deserving of any of it.

    Luke tried his best to swallow his emotions. “Luke Castellan?”

    “Yes, that was it.” Miss Jackson waved a hand in his direction, not making eye-contact. “Do you know him?”

    “Yeah. I hear he’s kind of a jerk- wasn’t very nice to Percy and stuff.”

    She hummed. “When did you hear that?”

    “Oh, uh, awhile back.” Luke gestured nonchalantly into the air, fighting off tears welling in his eyes. Now was not the time to cry. Better Miss Jackson think he’s a cold-hearted, manipulative, lying jerk who tried to kill her son rather than a wimp who cried when confronted with his own ill deeds. 

    “Percy told me he was actually rather nice when they first met, before Percy got claimed. Comforted him about finding out about all that demigodly stuff, showed him the ropes, took him in as part of the Hermes cabin.” She glanced at Luke out of the corner of her eye.

    Luke ducked his head, trying to hide his face as the first tears fell. Why’d she have to be so _nice?_ “All the stuff after that though- he still sounds like a pretty bad dude.”

    Miss Jackson’s full attention was on him now as she fiddled with a dish towel- her stare was suffocating. “He’s still very young. People can change on a dime when they’re that age. Who’s to say he hasn’t been trying to turn things around?”

A sob welled up in Luke’s throat, his eyes blurring as the crying hit him full-force. Miss Jackson clicked her tongue softly as she walked over, kneeling beside where he sat.

“Is your name really ‘Cas?’” she asked.

Luke shook his head meekly, curling tightly in on himself as he fought down a whimper. “ _I’m sorry._ ”

Miss Jackson took his hand gently, rubbing her thumb across his knuckles. “It’s alright, sweetheart.” She murmured. “Would you like me to still call you ‘Cas?’”

He nodded, the whimper escaping his throat. “ _I’m sorry._ ”

    Miss Jackson scooted silently onto the seat, enveloping him in a hug. She spoke quiet reassurances to him as she rubbed circles into his back, and Luke sank his head into her shoulder and cried.

    Part of him felt ridiculous for breaking down in front of Percy’s mother- a complete stranger, whose son he tried to kill on multiple occasions- but the rest of him was too emotionally exhausted to care. He let the tears fall, and gradually the sobs turned into his woes. He wasn’t even entirely aware of what he was venting about; probably his parents, the gods, the titan army and being manipulated, his remorse. It didn’t matter. Miss Jackson sat through it all, listening and consoling him until the tears ceased.

    As he sat back from Miss Jackson’s embrace, the blur clearing from his eyes, Luke noted Ethan standing awkwardly in the doorway, watching in silence. Meeting Luke’s gaze, he tensed and offered a nervous smile. Miss Jackson glanced between the two of them and stood, smoothing out the wrinkles of her dress.

    “I’ll get the air mattresses out of the closet for you two, since it seems the couch is taken.” She studied the open space of the floor, as if piecing together a puzzle. “Though it might be a bit cramped, fitting two.”

    “One is fine,” Luke wiped the dampness from his cheeks.

    Ethan’s smile softened to genuine lopsided grin. “Yeah- sort of a tradition or something at this point, huh?”

    “It’s a nice tradition, I think.”

    “Yeah.”

    Miss Jackson eyed them with a small smirk. “One it is then, and in the morning we’ll get you boys to camp.”


	7. Overly Dramatic Teens Everywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke is conflicted. Ethan plays emotional support. Nico is cryptic as usual. Sally is Best Mom. Percy is fucking pissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been trying to make the chapters a bit longer lately, but that means they're also taking a bit longer! Do you all prefer the shorter chapters or longer ones? Let me know! Also I hope COVID quarantine is treating you all well. Wash your hands, stay healthy, practice good social distancing by staying indoors and reading a fanfic or something idk.  
> I'm also working on a solangelo and fierrochase au that will hopefully be up soon! Happy reading!

    The nightmares hadn’t stopped since his sister died.

    They were manageable, before he _“fell”_. They had been only a replay of Bianca in her final moments, piloting that giant robot, being crushed and electrocuted to save the others on her quest. It hurt, but Nico could manage it. People die every day. Obituaries flashed by in quick bursts in his mind. If they were geographically close enough, his ears would ring and buzz. It gave him a headache at worst. It was manageable. 

    Then he met that damned ghost.

    He knew Minos was manipulating him. Minos was dead-set on vengeance, and Nico knew he would have to deal with it sooner or later. But Minos still trained Nico, helped him learn and master his powers and fighting skills, and how to live outside of society. It was productive work, even if grief and anger-driven. It was necessary. It was what he needed.

    The betrayal was expected and inevitable- Minos trying to trap and hand Nico over to the Titan Army in exchange for help in Daedlaus’ demise, since Nico had refused to do the job. (As if the Titan Army would have listened to a ghost.) Nico had defeated Minos, and claimed the title of Ghost King for himself.

    But the Labyrinth he had called his home, almost his friend, for the months since his sister’s death were riddled with pits and chasms, yawning deep into the darkest depths of the Underworld and below. Nico had overestimated, and as the earth swallowed Minos’ spirit back to Hades, the ground split more and more and opened beneath Nico himself, dropping him into the realm of monsters.

    Every time Nico closed his eyes, he recalled the heat of Tartarus, his body aching and screaming in suffering, the acidic atmosphere in his lungs. The claws of creatures grasping at him, tearing at him or carrying him away. He recalled the cold and the stale, still air of the jar that imprisoned him when the Titan Army discovered him down there. He remembered the muffled sounds from within the bronze _pithos_ , every time it was banged and the ringing of metal deafened him. He remembered the Death Trance he had to force himself into in order to survive, feeling his own heart slow to near stillness in the hopes that he might endure.

    Nico woke gasping for air.

    He was safe- at some point while he had been sleeping, someone had moved him and buckled him into the seat of a car. Luke and Ethan were chatting lightly with Percy Jackson’s mother, who was driving them down the highways of suburban New York. In Nico’s lap, someone had placed the leftovers he had gathered from the restaurant the day prior. It had been reheated while he had been asleep, and left a warm spot over the tops of his legs as he lifted it to inspect the contents. Food had been added to it- fresh pancakes were cut and stacked to one side- perhaps once neatly piled, but had since toppled down over each other from the shifting of the vehicle. A sauce container from the restaurant had been emptied out and repurposed to contain syrup. A plastic fork rattled against the foam box.

_You know what they say,_ Nico mused to himself. _Don’t look a gift pancake in the mouth. Shove it in your mouth._

    Minos had on multiple occasions advised him to go as long as he could without eating, to build endurance and be used to fighting, functioning, and surviving with little resources. The lessons had been helpful in Tartarus, given that the primary means of getting any sort of food down there was killing monsters in painfully specific ways to ensure they wouldn’t immediately dissolve to dust, but that took more effort than it rewarded. 

    But now he had pancakes. Fuck Minos.

    He got to work shoveling the food into his mouth.

    Beside him, Luke took notice of his eager consumption and chuckled, giving Nico a light pat on the head. “Hungry this morning, bud?” 

    Nico hummed in affirmation through his food.

    “We’re almost to camp. Miss Jackson was just telling us embarrassing stories about Percy.”

    “Don’t tell him I told you three,” Sally smirked over her shoulder from the driver’s seat. “The last time I told his friends stories from when he was little, his face was all red when he left on his quest. I’d show you baby photos too, but the photo album is a bit buried in the apartment right now.”

    “Wait, back up- you drove Percy on a quest?” Luke stifled a laugh. 

    “It was a little one- he was helping Grover with something in Maine last winter out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t any public transit and I didn’t want him taking a pegasus that far. I forget what exactly they were up to- picking up a new demigod to bring to camp, I think.”

    A wave of realization crashed upon Nico so hard he nearly choked on his pancake. He coughed subtly into his elbow, trying not to call attention to himself. He failed spectacularly.

    “You okay, kiddo?” Ethan patted Nico’s back a few times.

    “Fine, I’m fine,” Nico wheezed, brushing Ethan’s arm away.  

 

    Sally continued her tales of Percy’s adolescence- how he managed to accidentally kill two venomous snakes as a toddler, the time he dunked his class field trip into a shark tank, and most of all, his painfully obvious crush on Annabeth. Every time Sally brought up the subject, a sharp pain ached in Nico’s chest. 

    His feelings towards Percy were… _complicated_. A small part of him wanted to avoid Percy and never see him again so long as they both lived for a number of reasons, but primarily for not stopping Bianca from sacrificing herself. The rest of Nico knew Bianca’s death was inevitable given the stubbornness of their bloodline, and that there were far more pressing concerns in the world than the loss of a loved one. Like Tartarus. Falling into Tartarus was a big one. Never doing that again.

    The rest of Nico also couldn’t help but admire Percy - he was practically a dream come true. A hero right out of Nico’s Mythomagic deck who had saved his life. He was kind, strong, handsome, and _real_. A real hero.

    Of course, now that Nico was more well-acquainted with demigod life, he knew “real heroes” weren’t exactly hard to come by. They were heading to a whole camp full of them. He _himself_ was kind of a hero, sort of. But Percy was the idealistic type of hero Nico had always imagined. The ones who got happy endings and didn’t get cursed by the gods to murder their whole family or who didn’t go on a rampage running the rivers red with blood because their loved one was killed. There weren’t a lot of those types of heroes. Heck, Percy even reminded Nico of the pirates he used to be obsessed with - a bit romanticized, perhaps, but the pirates who sailed the seven seas fighting the corrupt aristocracy, freeing slaves, _marrying other men-_

    -What?

    Wow that was a weird train of thought. Better not think about it.

    Nico curled in on himself, shoveling more pancakes and leftovers into his mouth as he repressed the concept that had just entered his head. It’s not like it mattered, anyway. Percy was in love with Annabeth, just as Miss Jackson kept reiterating, and there were those far more pressing concerns Nico had to wrestle with- like stopping the Titan army. And avoiding falling into Tartarus again. There was no time to daydream about romance.

 _...Not_ that the romance had anything to do with Percy. No, that’d be silly. Completely unrelated topics. They couldn’t be related- Nico was a boy. Percy was a boy. That wasn’t how it worked.

    Nico spared a glance to either side of him, where Ethan and Luke were pushing playfully at each other around him. Their hands were clasped together behind the headrest of Nico’s seat. Their eyes (or in Ethan’s case- eye) sparkled when they met each other’s gaze. Nico thought back to the night in the hotel room, where Luke and Ethan had sat close with their foreheads together, holding each other’s faces.

    ...Maybe.

    Maybe that _could_ be how it worked.

 

    The drive was uneventful, particularly compared to the previous few days. Luke and Ethan chatted cheerfully with Miss Jackson and joked with each other, the stress of the past week forgotten in the mundaneness of the car ride. Nico stared out the windows, watching the trees and towns go by. No furies descended from the sky. No lightning threatened to smite them. There was only the blissful peace of casual conversation. He stayed quiet, half-asleep against Luke as Miss Jackson asked them about their lives- about school, where they were from, what careers they wanted to go into. It was a normalcy Nico wasn’t used to, but he savored the calmness of it while he could. When they left the car, they would be thrown back into the world of deities and monsters and imminent doom and apocalypse, but for now their only concern was the road.

 

    Miss Jackson parked the car at the side of the road, beside the trail that led into camp. Half-Blood Hill rose in the distance, topped with Thalia’s pine tree where a glittering golden sheepskin hung in the branches. A young dragon curled around the base of the tree in slumber. Ethan walked delicately past, making a wide arc around the tree. Luke had seemed to almost physically shrink since leaving the car, posture stiff as he hovered close by Ethan’s side, his eyes locked to the ground as if ashamed to look at the evergreen beside him.

    Nico threw caution to the wind and patted the dragon on the head as he passed by, leaving a leftover drumstick as a treat. The dragon stirred just enough to accept the snack and rumbled happily as it returned to sleep.

    Miss Jackson had no difficulties passing the border, which Nico found peculiar until he considered Percy’s reputation. It made sense that out of all mortals who would have special permission to enter camp, it would be Percy’s mother. She didn’t seem to mind the dragon either, walking by it without acknowledgement. 

    The four of them passed over the crest of the hill, overlooking part of camp. It was a bit past mid-day, and still too early in the year for most of the summer kids to have begun trickling in, so the campgrounds were quiet. They walked in silence through the fields, no one in sight until they arrived at the dining pavilion. 

    A few demigods mingled around the tables, likely having remained to chat after lunch. Nico was able to recognize most- the majority of them had been present for the week Nico had lived at camp. Silena Beauregard, counselor of the Aphrodite cabin, and her boyfriend Charles Beckendorf, head of the Hephaestus cabin, sat together chatting with a tough looking girl with short, choppy hair that looked like it had been cut with a knife, tied back with a bandana. Probably an Ares kid, if he had to guess. The Stoll brothers stood beside each other, listening intently to whatever conversation the small gaggle of campers were having and poking at pitchers of water that dotted the tables. Two identical boys lounged on the bench beside them, fiddling with vines that wound around the table’s legs. A girl and a boy stood off to the side- the boy staring in confusion at his quiver of arrows that had begun sprouting flowers, and the girl snickering to herself as she feigned innocence. 

    Percy, Annabeth, and Grover sat grouped together, backs turned towards Nico. Chiron stood nearby, swishing his equine tail idly as he supervised the gaggle of demigods before him. 

    They were far enough away that the group at the dining pavilion hadn’t noticed them yet. Luke was visibly tense, hiding behind Ethan as best as he could despite their difference in heights. Nico couldn’t blame him. The crack in the ground of the dining pavilion glared at Nico, stinging like salt in a wound, reminding him of exactly why he hadn’t wanted to return to camp. Even Ethan seemed uncomfortable, scuffing the toe of his shoe in the dirt and holding his palms out for his companions to take his hands. Luke eagerly squeezed one hand, shuffling closer to duck his face into Ethan’s hair. Nico took Ethan’s other hand, shifting closer to their sides to join Luke in hiding. 

    “Well,” Sally clasped her hands together, grinning broadly. “I’m gonna head over to Percy’s cabin and start getting his bags in the car. Good luck, you three.”

    She gave each of them a cheerful pat on the head before walking off towards the cabins. Nico could sense the dread of their group sharply increase as soon as she was gone. 

    Finally, Chiron turned around and noticed them. He seemed startled at first- understandably so, given the three of them had gotten relatively far into camp without anyone noticing, and were now standing awkwardly in a huddle aways from the pavilion. 

    Ethan made first contact, waving stiffly with a nervously polite smile before quickly returning to tangling his fingers with Luke’s. Chiron waved in return, trotting towards them and drawing the attention of the campers present. Percy, Annabeth, and Grover turned in their seats, freezing sharply upon noting the new arrivals. The Stoll brothers nearly fell over each other, eyes almost bugging out of their skulls.

    “Hello, you three.” Chiron greeted. “You must be Ethan, I presume?”

    “Yes, hello,” Ethan squeezed Luke and Nico’s hands tightly, nudging Luke forward with a foot. Luke peered cautiously up from Ethan’s hair.

    “Hi, Chiron.” Luke’s voice was tight, as though something was keeping the air from passing through his throat.. “Long time, no see.”

    “It’s good to see you again, Luke.” Chiron smiled earnestly, sending Luke’s gaze back to Ethan’s head as though the action had physically pained him to witness. 

    Percy and Annabeth had risen from their seats, slowly making their way over to where Chiron stood. Grover trailed behind, apprehensively glancing between his friends as they neared. 

    “Luke.” Annabeth’s tone cut coldly through the air. Luke winced as she spoke. 

    Percy eyed the trio before him, seeming not particularly concerned with Luke or Ethan. He stepped back and forth searching for something in their midst. It took Nico a moment to realize what Percy was searching for was him.

    Nico inched out from behind Ethan, meeting Percy’s gaze. Percy stiffened, processing for a moment before his eyes went wide. The pitchers of water on the tables rattled violently as the water was swept from within them and into the air, whipping to attention around Percy like extra arms.

    “You never said the kid traveling with you was _Nico_.” 

    Chiron skittered out of the way, startled hooves kicking up dirt. “ _Percy!_ ”

    “Woah, woah, woah!” Ethan held his hands up defensively, Luke still as a statue behind him. “We didn’t even know the kid’s name until like, the third or something day we were traveling. We didn’t know he’d been to camp before until _yesterday_!”

    “Nico,” Percy’s voice was eerily steady. “Come over here. Step away from them- you don’t know what they’ve done.”

    Defensiveness washed over Nico. He stepped closer to Luke and Ethan, squeezing Ethan’s hand tighter. The temperature around him dropped until frost began forming on the grass at his feet.  Percy took a step closer, the water floating above him beginning to freeze. “Nico. Come on.”

    Nico tugged his jacket around himself as the temperature took another steep drop. The water above Percy crackled as it solidified into glistening sharp icicles. Ethan yelped quietly, pulling closer to Luke.

    “Percy, _please_.” Chiron pleaded. 

    “Nico.” Percy gritted his teeth. “Luke hasn’t told you what he’s done, has he?”

    “You haven’t told me what you’ve done either.” Nico snapped. “They’ve done more for me than _you_ have.”

    The ice above Percy crashed to the ground, splintering at his feet. He glared at Luke, but made no further moves. The air began to warm again.

    Chiron drew a breath. “Luke, Ethan, Nico- why don’t we chat. Percy, I believe you have packing to do?”

    Percy was silent, and stalked off towards his cabin. Annabeth stared solemnly at Luke for a moment before following after, Grover trailing behind the two of them. 

 

    Chiron led them to the Big House living room, settling into his wheelchair and gesturing for the three of them to take a seat. Vines curled up the walls and across the ceiling, and an arcade machine beeped quietly in the corner. A fire crackled in the fireplace, the leopard head mounted above it snoring softly-

    Wait, snoring?

    Nico squinted at the trophy mount, which flicked its ear in the midst of its slumber. _Eh_ , not the weirdest thing he’d seen that week.

    He curled into one of the chairs, Ethan leaning against the armrest beside him. Luke stood still as a statue in the doorway. Chiron eyed him like one might a stray cat.

    “Luke-”

    Luke’s voice broke. “I know I- I’m sorry-”

    “Luke, please,” Chiron waved a hand at the chairs. “Sit. You’ve been on the road for awhile, yes? Rest a bit. We can catch up on more concerning matters after you all have settled in. There are other things to discuss first.” He turned his attention to Nico. “-Such as you, Mr. di Angelo. I had been worried a monster might have caught you by now. What exactly have you been up to since I last saw you?”

    “I’ve been training.” Nico huffed, sinking into his jacket. 

    “I’m sure you have. If you made it this far on your own, you must have been doing an excellent job of it, too. Have you made any progress in determining your godly parent?”

    Nico clenched his jaw, ducking further into his wearable hideaway and remaining silent.

    Chiron nodded, seeming to take his lack of response as a ‘no.’ “It can be a difficult process; I understand. I hope otherwise your journey wasn’t difficult?”

    “Surprisingly, yeah.” Ethan shrugged. “We only ran into one monster.”

    “Megaera.” Nico huffed. 

    Chiron raised an eyebrow. “Megaera?”

    “The Fury.”

    “Oh, my. Quite the peculiar situation it sounds. I’m glad to see you made it here in one piece.”

    Ethan brushed a hand over the scratches that cut across his missing eye. “More or less.”

    Chiron's gaze suddenly turned concerned.

    “Er,” Ethan smiled apologetically. “Not the eye part. That was already missing.”

    “Ah, I see- _er-_ ”

    “Don’t worry about it.”

    “I still don’t understand why we didn’t run into more monsters.” Luke frowned from the doorway. “Even on my own during my quest I bumped into them left and right. We only saw _one_ in what, a week?”

    Nico peered out of his jacket. He knew why they hadn’t encountered many adversaries - he was keeping them away. Not purposefully, but the scent of Tartarus that clung to him unsettled most monsters, reminding them of the place they least wished to return to. Nico couldn’t blame them; he would rather do almost anything instead of having to return to the realm of beasts.

    He remained quiet. Best not to bring up the topic and raise more questions from Chiron.

    The centaur in question brushed his beard thoughtfully for a moment. “It is quite strange, but also favorable luck. Perhaps it's best to accept the good fortune and move on for the time being.” He considered the room, then continued. “Would you mind describing this journey of yours in more detail?”

    Ethan and Luke recited their trip - Luke meeting Nico (which Nico could only foggily recall, being mostly-dead and barely conscious at the time), being freed from Kronos, freeing Nico, running away and Ethan joining them, the hotel and the car and the Fury and meeting Percy’s mother - Ethan leading the narrative for the majority of the tale as Luke seemed unable to speak above a hoarse whisper upon reaching where Ethan joined their party. 

    Ethan supplemented their story with his own - his encounter with his mother, and how he joined the Titan Army to begin with. Nico let his mind wander, the voices around him fading out until they were incomprehensible, and all he could focus on was the fabric of his jacket brushing against his ears.

    The sounds of the room faded to silence, and new voices grew around him - the spirits of the deceased making themselves known to him.

 _“Castellan’s fate is tied to your own,”_ One ghost whispered above the din. A child of Apollo, as far as Nico could discern, who had died just over a decade prior. 

    “I know,” Nico muttered into the folds of fabric nestled around him, quiet as he could manage to avoid being heard by the living company in the room. “The Great Prophecy. I’ve heard.”

    “ _No, beyond the prophecy. A curse from your own time, and a horrible fate upon the Castellans’ home._ ”

    “My own time?” Nico shuffled out of the inside of his jacket until he could look beyond the hood - the ghost was inches from his face, translucent curls framing their once-freckled empty-eyed face. 

    “ _Your own time._ ” The ghost echoed, apparently at the end of what useful information they retained. Their cheeks were still round with baby fat, likely not much older than 15. The side of their skull was caved in- the injury that caused their demise, no doubt- their features bending awkwardly towards the divot as though it were a whirlpool. 

    The other spirits drifting around him had no input. They muttered incoherently, their lives before death worn away over time and their fate left to float aimlessly for eternity, only seeming to remember they could move to be drawn towards Nico like a magnet. 

    Nico huffed, disgruntled. They could at least offer something of more use to his current predicament - amnesia, it seemed to him. Memories and thoughts lost in a thick fog inside his mind - and his brain deciding to obscure his memory further after the Tartarus incident was hardly assisting the situation. In the past few months, he had only been able to recover small snippets of his life before the hotel he and Bianca had stayed in; He was from Italy, had moved to the States soon before the hotel for… _some reason_ (something to do with relatives in the States?), and most of what the “lawyer” that had guided him and his sister to school in Maine had told him was lies. His mother was dead, yes, and he had witnessed it - loud crashing, being tucked against Bianca, the two of them held close to a figure he couldn’t see, the sound of heavy rain and the smell of burning and dust - but the fog enveloped his thoughts each time he grasped at the small threads of information he could recall.

    “Are you talking to yourself again, Kiddo?”

    Ethan’s voice cut through Nico’s stream of consciousness, startling him back to the present. All eyes in the room - living and deceased - were trained on him.

    “Uh… yeah,” His face flushed hot with embarrassment. “Don’t worry about it.”

    Chiron glanced between Ethan and Luke for confirmation that the subject was in fact no cause for concern. The two boys shrugged nonchalantly in response, which seemed to satisfy Chiron enough to drop the subject.

    “No matter. We should get you three patched up and settled in. You can stay in the Big House for the time being.”

    “The Big House? Not the Hermes cabin?” Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You want to keep an eye on us, I presume.”

    “No, no- Just…” Chiron glanced between them. “...Perhaps the Hermes cabin isn’t the best option at the moment.”

    A tremor passed across Luke’s face, as though he were struggling to restrain a gag. Nico had no doubts Chiron’s reasoning was mixed - he was an intelligent mentor who had been overseeing the training of demigods for millenia. Two ex-members of the Titan Army and a child of unknown parentage and powers they had clearly left an impact on were no doubt a concern the centaur would need to oversee personally. Not to mention Luke’s easy influence over others, particularly his siblings would potentially prove catastrophic if Luke were in fact lying about his defection, or that the majority of demigods who had either joined the Titan Army or simply ran away from camp (Nico included) had done so due to feeling excluded since their godly parent had no cabin, leaving them to be forgotten in Cabin 11. Two-thirds of their part had Non-Olympian parents. Chiron had clearly taken the stakes into account.

    Nico didn’t particularly mind - the Big House was quieter and calmer anyhow. Far fewer Hermes kids who might try to pickpocket him, and the spaciousness of the building helped ease the claustrophobia that had been hovering over Nico’s head ever since he had been held prisoner in the jar.

    “Right.” Ethan didn’t seem convinced by Chiron’s cover-up, but shrugged it off nonetheless. He turned his attention back toward Luke instead. “We sharing a bed still?”

    Luke’s face flushed, eyes darting around the room to every subject except Ethan’s eye. “If you want- I mean-” He chuckled nervously, though it came out as more of a strangled squeak. “Really _is_ kind of a thing now, huh?” 

    Chiron eyed the two of them, but his expression revealed nothing. A tightness curled in Nico’s stomach. If the centaur had any thoughts on the matter, he didn’t voice them.

    “Luke, you remember where the beds are, yes?” He finally spoke. “I trust I can leave you three to take care of yourselves?”

    “Yeah, we’ve got it.” Ethan stepped to Luke’s side, playfully bumping his shoulder against Luke’s own. “Shall we get to it?”

    Luke’s face was still bright red. “Right. Yeah. Let’s uh- yeah.”

    “I’ll let you all get settled in then.” Chiron nodded.

 

    “I can’t believe he still trusts me, after everything.” Luke frisbeed his pillow onto his bed, pacing along beside it. Ever since Chiron had left them to their own devices, the son of Hermes hadn’t seemed to stop moving. “He didn’t even give me the chance to _apologize-_ not like I really _can-_ ”

    “Do you want Chiron to forgive you or not?” Nico narrowed his eyes, frowning in Luke’s direction from the bed he had claimed as his own. Luke froze to meet his gaze.

    “...What do you mean?”

    “You want him to believe you’re making a change, right? That you’re sorry for your actions and are trying to make things right?”

    Luke twiddled his fingers. “Yes?”

    “But also, you want him to hate you and be angry about all you’ve done and think you’re evil and untrustworthy because you feel like that’s what you deserve. Like you haven’t earned forgiveness yet.”

    Luke frowned. “Okay, yeah, I see your point.”

    “Damn, Kiddo, when did you start psychoanalyzing people?” Ethan eyed Nico from across the room. “Aren’t you like, ten?”

    “Eleven, and I got bored. Either way, you got both, didn’t you? Chiron accepted you back into camp, but he clearly doesn’t trust you completely, or else we’d be in the Hermes cabin right now. He’s willing to give you the chance to redeem yourself. You can’t spend all your time moping around wanting people to hate you, because eventually they will and there will have been no point to leaving the Titan Army.”

    Nico’s two companions took turns blinking incredulously at him.

    Ethan broke the silence. “You are _terrifying_ for an amnesic eleven year old.”

    “Thank you, I try. So, Luke,” Nico turned his attention back to the blond teen. “You’ve gotten this far. Now what’s your plan? How are you going to right your wrongs?”

    Luke considered the question for a moment, staring at his feet. Finally, he spoke.

    “I’m going to end what I started. We’re going to take down the Titans.”


End file.
